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Topics

Invention and experiments

  • Summary
A Phrenologist Comparing His Own Head with a Phrenological Bust
Image credit: Wellcome Collection

A Phrenologist Comparing His Own Head with a Phrenological Bust

Albert William Holden (1848–1932)

Wellcome Collection

Early scientific techniques of experimentation arose out of alchemy, the fruitless search for the ‘philosopher’s stone’ that would turn base metal into gold. Numerous Dutch and Flemish seventeenth-century paintings mocked these activities, but Holland was still a home of modern science. After Isaac Newton, science became more rational and experiments were its foundation, as dramatised in Joseph Wright of Derby’s well-known An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump of 1768.


Read more

Inventors, scientists and engineers are well represented in national portrait galleries and the collections of professional scientific and engineering institutions. They have sometimes been painted centuries after their deaths, at work on their inventions and experiments or often romantically imagined at the moment of inspiration.

Artworks

  • An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump
    An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump Joseph Wright of Derby (1734–1797)
    The National Gallery, London
  • Reginald Joseph Mitchell (1895–1937), CBE, Aeronautical Engineer
    Reginald Joseph Mitchell (1895–1937), CBE, Aeronautical Engineer Frank Ernest Beresford (1881–1967)
    Southampton City Art Gallery
  • Pandora's Box
    Pandora's Box Brian Yale (1936–2009)
    Wolverhampton Art Gallery
  • Gloster Aircraft, E.28/39
    Gloster Aircraft, E.28/39 C. E. P. Davis (active 1924–1989)
    Museum of Gloucester
  • Composition
    Composition George Blacklock (b.1952)
    Arts Council Collection, Southbank Centre
  • Lancaster 111 JB421 K-King of 49 Squadron
    Lancaster 111 JB421 K-King of 49 Squadron Colin Ashford (1919–2020)
    Yorkshire Air Museum
  • Spitfire
    Spitfire R. Thorley (active 1977–1979)
    Yorkshire Air Museum
  • 224 more

Stories

  • Celebrating 500 years of polymathy in Britain

    Waqās Ahmed

  • Five highlights from 'The Art of Innovation: From Enlightenment to Dark Matter' at the Science Museum

    Katy Barrett

  • Joseph Wright of Derby: the everyday, the epic and the Enlightenment

    John Bonehill

  • Why are hands so difficult to draw? Using the failures of AI to understand

    Alice Read

  • Sparking the Gothic imagination: Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein' and Polidori's 'The Vampyre'

    Andrew Shore

  • Visual sound: mysteries of the human voice revealed by Megan Watts Hughes

    Christopher Parry

  • Glass and black mirror: reflections on windows and reality

    Umulkhayr Mohamed

  • Still from HENI Talks' film on Paolozzi's 'Faraday'
    A mind split in half: Eduardo Paolozzi's 'Faraday'

    Gregory Salter and HENI Talks

  • Nicola Hicks' 'Brown Dog'

    Anthony McIntosh

  • Art in science, science in art: the Whipple Museum collection

    Guey-Mei Hsu

Learning resources

  • screenshot-2021-04-14-at-11-20-26-1.png
    Video
    Sculpture near you: 'Construction' by Peter Lanyon
    • KS3 (ENG)
      KS4 (ENG)
      KS3 (WAL)
      KS4 (WAL)
      KS3 (NI)
      KS4 (NI)
      CfE L3 (SCO)
      CfE L4 (SCO)
  • ng-ng-ng725-thumb-edited-1-1.jpg
    Audio
    Audio description of 'An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump' by Joseph Wright of Derby
    • KS2 (ENG)
      KS2 (NI)
      CfE L2 (SCO)
      PS3 (WAL)
      SEND (ENG)
      SEND (NI)
      ASN (SCO)
      SEND (WAL)
  • rmpgallery-1.png
    Video
    The Superpower of Looking with Rachel Martin Peer
    • KS2 (ENG)
      KS2 (NI)
      CfE L2 (SCO)
      PS3 (WAL)
      KS3 (ENG)
      KS3 (NI)
      CfE L3 (SCO)
      KS3 (WAL)
  • NG_NG_NG725-001.jpg
    Lesson plan
    The Superpower of Looking: an experiment by candlelight
    • KS2 (ENG)
      KS2 (NI)
      CfE L2 (SCO)
      PS3 (WAL)
  • brop-riley-hesitate-1.jpg
    Lesson plan
    Bridget Riley and Op Art
    • KS3 (ENG)
      KS3 (NI)
      CfE L3 (SCO)
      CfE L4 (SCO)
      KS3 (WAL)
  • NG_NG_NG725-001.jpg
    Lesson plan
    Grym y Gweld: arbrawf yng ngolau cannwyll
    • PS3 (WAL)
  • ng-ng-ng725-thumb-edited-1-1.jpg
    Audio
    Disgrifiad sain o 'An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump' gan Joseph Wright of Derby
    • PS3 (WAL)
      SEND (WAL)
  • misimg3-thumbnail-1.jpg
    Lesson plan
    Weave a sensory sculpture
    • SEND (ENG)
      SEND (NI)
      ASN (SCO)
      SEND (WAL)
      KS2 (ENG)
      KS2 (NI)
      CfE L2 (SCO)
      PS3 (WAL)
  • fo-anka-dabrovska-vans-kiosk-1.jpg
    Lesson plan
    Art from everyday objects and materials
    • KS3 (ENG)
      KS3 (NI)
      CfE L3 (SCO)
      CfE L4 (SCO)
      KS3 (WAL)

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® is a registered trade mark of the Public Catalogue Foundation.
Art UK is the operating name of the Public Catalogue Foundation, a charity registered in England and Wales (1096185) and Scotland (SC048601).