"... but the fact is being a great artist and knowing differential calculus are mutually exclusive." Either you missed a 'not', or you need to stop and think a

"... but the fact is being a great artist and knowing differential calculus are mutually exclusive." Either you missed a 'not', or you need to stop and think about the number of people you've just insulted with this statement. Math and art have been strongly intertwined for a very long time, from the Golden Ratio of the Greeks to Da Vinci to Escher (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematics_and_art http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematics_and_art). Those who are good at math are frequently good at art partly because they can understand abstractions and separate them from 'icons' of objects and ideas. I would instead state that it is the rare great artist that doesn't have the ability to quickly pick up continuous math concepts.