"We’re living in a period now where we have separated art and science far more than we should have," argued Tilly Blyth at Hay Festival Winter Weekend on Friday.
Presenting her new book, The Art of Innovation, based on the landmark BBC Radio 4 series and Science Museum exhibition, the curator discussed the connections between science and art, revealing a new perspective on their contribution to the world around us.
Through fascinating stories that explored the sometimes unexpected relationships between famous artworks and significant scientific and technological objects – from Constable’s cloudscapes and the chemist who first measured changes in air pressure, to the introduction of photography and the representation of natural history in print – she offered a different way of seeing, studying and interpreting the world.
"Throughout history, artists and scientists alike have been driven by curiosity and the desire to explore worlds, inner and outer. They have wanted to make sense of what they see around them and feel within them," she said.
Taking Turner's Rain, Steam and Speeds, she highlighted its value in encompassing the innovation it represented. "If you were travelling on the Great Western Railway in the 1840s, you were travelling faster than anyone else in the world. Turner captures that perfectly in Rain, Steam and Speed, along with the fear these technological advances provoked."
"Science is just as much a human passion as art is," she said.
Blyth is the Head of Collections and Principal Curator at the Science Museum in London, where she is responsible for the museum's Curatorial, Research, Library and Archives departments. The team have delivered award winning galleries exhibitions in subjects as diverse as Mathematics, Robots, Cosmonauts: the Russian Space story and Illuminating India: 500 years of science and technology.
Discover more of the Hay Festival Winter Weekend programme here.