Title: Fluid dynamics - an oil painting

Description: This painting attempts to depict a surrealistic view of the field of fluid dynamics. The column with its collection of fluids symbols stands out in forced perspective against the flat background. The great bird, in becoming airborne, drags one leg through the water to create a Kelvin-wedge wave pattern. The background wall is embellished by stone-carved fluid icons that are read in vertical columns from left to right: 1) evolution, 2) geophysical fluid dynamics, 3) potential flows, 4) fluid instabilities, 5) plumes and shear layers, 6) profiles of all sorts, 7) supersonic flows, 8) instrumentation, 9) thermodynamics and turbomachinery, 10) flight, 11)-12) obscured, 13) weapons, 14) war. This painting was hung in the Gallery of Fluid Motion at the American Physical Society Division of Fluid Dynamics Meeting held in Tampa in 2006. 20x24" oil on stretched canvas, 2006.

Credits:

References: Settles, G. S., "On the fluid dynamicist as artist," Proceedings of the 12th International Symposium on Flow Visualization, Göttingen, Germany, September 2006.

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Contributed By: Gary S. Settles