The meeting of minds
Far from working in isolation, artists and scientists have drawn inspiration from one another for 250 years – as Tilly Blyth, curator of a new Science Museum exhibition, tells Ellie Cawthorne
Tilly Blyth reveals how artists and scientists have drawn inspiration from one another over the past 250 years
Picture an artist daubing streaks of paint on to a canvas. Next, imagine a scientist meticulously studying samples in the lab. Initially these two figures may seem the antithesis of one another – one striving for unconstrained self-expression, the other for order and reason. But as a new exhibition at the Science Museum and an accompanying Radio 4 series demonstrate, the disciplines of art and science are far from polar opposites. Rather, the similarities between them can prove more illuminating than the differences, and cross-pollination has been an important driving force for both over the past 250 years.
“When it comes down to it, whether you’re capturing the essence of a landscape or grappling with the concept of dark matter, you’re ultimately striving for the same thing – to understand the world around you,” says Tilly Blyth, curator of the exhibition, and one of the presenters of the Radio 4 series. “Success in both disciplines relies on creativity and imagination – the ability to jump further and think beyond.”
Enlightening ideas
As the exhibition reveals, this symbiotic relationship can be seen in a wealth of fascinating artworks and objects. One of the earliest is Joseph Wright’s c1766 oil painting A Philosopher Giving That Lecture on an Orrery, in Which a Lamp Is Put in the Place of the Sun, showing a red-robed man of science demonstrating the movements of the solar system using a planetary model.
“This is a really phenomenal painting if you want to explore how science has inspired artists over the past 250 years,” says Blyth. “It was created at the height of Europe’s scientific Enlightenment, and if you look at the centre, light seems to emanate from the orrery, representing the spread of new scientific knowledge at the time.” Under Wright’s paintbrush, scientific endeavour becomes something to be respected and revered – he depicts the quest for knowledge employing the same artistic conventions traditionally used to venerate classical or religious subjects. It’s thought that he may have been inspired by a lecture from astronomer James Ferguson, who would tour his wooden orrery around Britain’s coffee shops and lecture halls, eager to communicate his ideas to the 18th-century’s swelling middle classes.
Artists of the 18th and early 19th centuries were not only inspired by science as a potential subject – many were also influenced by its methods. “There was no clear distinction between scientific and artistic thinking, as we have today,” says Blyth.“This is something we can see if we take a closer look at John
While Constable was searching for the science behind beauty, others were uncovering beauty in their scientific research
Constable’s oil painting Study of Sky and Trees.” Capturing swirling clouds above Hampstead Heath, it’s just one of many quick yet detailed skyscapes made by the artist. Constable proudly wrote to a friend that he had “done a good deal of ‘skying’”, and his studies of cloud formations on these outings mirrored techniques and aims of contemporary meteorologists in many ways. “He was trying to capture a log of how clouds behaved at different times of the day and year, in different wind conditions,” says Blyth. Constable’s aspiration to scientific rigour can be seen in a message he scribbled on the back of the canvas: “Sepr. 24th. 10 o’clock morning wind S.W. warm & fine till afternoon, when it rained & wind got more to the north.”
While Constable was searching for the science behind natural beauty, the botanist Anna Atkins was uncovering beauty in her scientific research. She created inky blue cyanotypes of ferns, algae and other flora using an early cameraless photographic method known as ‘sunprinting’ or ‘blueprinting’. Botanical specimens were placed on chemically treated paper, and then exposed to sunlight. The paper would be stained a deep cyan, leaving delicate, milky-white silhouettes. Atkins created hundreds of these intricate images, which she published in various volumes. “Her work showed that you could capture a version of nature in a level of detail never seen before, while creating something beautiful,” says Blyth.
Life in motion
As the 19th century progressed, clearer distinctions between science and art began to emerge. But one man whose work still blurred the lines was Eadweard Muybridge, who experimented with photography as a means of capturing motion.
In the 1870s, Muybridge embarked on a vast project to document how creatures moved – from prowling lions to humans playing leapfrog. And through his use of cutting-edge technology, he changed the way artists at the time understood locomotion. “One of his images, The Horse in Motion, even proved a new truth,” says Blyth. “Using a complex system of cameras and triggers, he showed that when a galloping horse’s four hooves lifted off the ground, they didn’t stretch out as artists of the time depicted, but tucked under its belly. That left artists with a question: do you have a responsibility to capture that new truth, even though you can’t see it with the eye? Or do you carry on reflecting something that better captures the artistic essence of motion?”
The relationship between science and art has not always been harmonious. Take the Dada movement, which emerged out of the
First World War. Works like Otto Dix’s
The Cardplayers were a backlash against the devastation unleashed by technological advancements in the trenches, such as machine guns and mustard gas. The three veterans playing cards are disfigured and burnt. “They are not really people any more: they’ve been turned into semi-mutilated bodies,” says Blyth. “Here, Dix is making a comment on the degraded value of humanity ushered in by science in this horrific time.”
While some artists rebelled against the rapid scientific progress of the 20th century, others embraced it. In 1951, the Festival of Britain was launched to showcase the very best the postwar nation had to offer in both science and design. “This was an optimistic time – people were thinking about how innovation could build a better future,” says Blyth. “Nowhere is this clearer than in the x-ray crystallography patterns specially developed for the festival.” The initial idea for the designs came from Dr Helen Megaw, who was so “impressed by the beauty” of the molecular structures she studied that she contacted designers to suggest a collaboration. Patterns based on the atomic make-up of compounds such as insulin and boric acid were rolled out across products ranging from wallpaper to dressmaking fabric and ashtrays.
“From the 18th century until today, science and art have been in continual dialogue,” says Blyth. “Only by seeing them as part of the same culture can we reveal the creativity that is essential for humankind to aspire to better, to understand more, and to dream.”
Otto Dix’s art was a backlash against the devastation unleashed by science