Art requires access to the imagination, a notoriously difficult place to visit. The imagination fuels an idea. The artist acts urgently, often impulsively, on that idea but brings conscious rigor to the evaluation of what the imagination has spewed. Ultimately, experience, intellect, insight, and drive enable them to shape the work and then to edit

To build his cathedral dome—a self-supporting structure of close to four million bricks that is still the largest masonry dome in the world—Brunelleschi had to develop sophisticated mathematical modeling techniques and invent an array of hoists and other engineering tools.

mounting a two-ton ball on top of Brunelleschi’s dome of Florence’s cathedral. It was a triumph of both art and technology.