The Art of Innovation

BBC Radio 4 FM

BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

BBC Radio 4

BBC Radio 4 LW

The Art of Innovation: Omnibus 1

How art and science have inspired each other.

Radio 4

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Factual: Science & Nature: Science & Technology

Sir Ian Blatchford and Dr Tilly Blyth explore how art and science have inspired each other.

In this landmark series, art historian and Director of the Science Museum Ian Blatchford and technology historian and Head of Collections of the Science Museum Tilly Blyth explore the art of invention and the invention of art and reveal the symbiotic relationship between the two. Many feel science takes the magic out of creativity. These programmes show how scientific advance facilitates creativity. And further, how artistic and scientific endeavour are inspired by the same desires and, often, are the result of intimate conversations between good friends. Galileo's painter friend Ludovicio Cigoli paints a maculate moon on the ceiling of the Sistine chapel and what does Galileo see when he looks through his telescope? A maculate moon. The poet Samuel Coleridge and the chemist Humphrey Davy were very close friends. Scientific innovators are creative thinkers. And the creation of art is dependent on technological development, as well as an aesthetic sense. Throughout history, artists and scientists have both desired to make sense of the world around them and change it, 

Produced in partnership with The Science Museum Group. 

Image credit: Science Museum Group Collection © The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum.

Omnibus 1

BBC Radio 4 - The Art of Innovation, Omnibus 1

Sir Ian Blatchford and Dr Tilly Blyth explore how art and science have inspired each other

Sir Ian Blatchford and Dr Tilly Blyth with their first omnibus edition exploring how art and science have inspired each other in an age of Industrialisation and Romance.

Sir Ian Blatchford, Director of the Science Museum Group, and the Science Museum’s Head of Collections, Dr Tilly Blyth, with their first omnibus edition in which they draw upon key works of art along with objects from the Science Museum Group's collection to explore how art and science have inspired each other in an age of Romance. 

Along the way: the impact of an Enlightenment view of the cosmos; shaping the first impressions of the Industrial Revolution; the power of satire as science gains respectability; seeking truth to nature in the golden age of landscape painting; the anxieties of rapid progress in a new age of steam and speed.


Producer Adrian Washbourne

Produced in partnership with The Science Museum Group

Readers: Shaun Mason, Katherine Cusack, Sean Baker.

Music composed by Mark  Russell

Accessibility links

Programme Index

The Art of Innovation

Omnibus 1

Genres

Series

About this data