Truth and Beauty

What do clouds and ballerinas have in common? Bryan explores that question with a trip to the Yale Center for British Art. Then, Jesse introduces us to the scientist with his head in the clouds who helped revolutionize the way painters depicted the sky. Remember to tell your friends about Truth and Beauty, rate and review the show on iTunes, and follow @truthandbeautypod on Instagram! Links: Turner’s landscapes at the Yale Center for British Art https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/vufind/Record/1667701 Constable’s cloud studies at the Yale Center for British Art https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/vufind/Record/1670757 Degas’ ballerinas https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/degas-and-his-dancers-79455990/ How do clouds float? https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-do-clouds-float-when/ Luke Howard, the man who named the clouds https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1256/wea.157.02 The volcanic eruption of 1783 https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidbressan/2015/06/08/this-1783-volcanic-eruption-changed-the-course-of-history/#53fde2b353c8 Luke Howard’s cloud art http://journal.sciencemuseum.ac.uk/browse/issue-02/made-real/luke-howard-s-clouds-and-the-persistence-of-convention/ Music in this episode by Alan Piljak, Podington Bear, Blue Dot Sessions, and Return to Normal. All music courtesy the Free Music Archive. Our theme song is “Silver Moon” by The Columbians, from the Internet Archive. Episode Transcript: Bryan 0:20 Hi everyone, welcome to Truth and Beauty. I'm Bryan. Jesse 0:23 And I'm Jesse. We're bringing you conversations about the world between an astrophysicist who can't draw Bryan 0:28 and an artist who dropped out of high school. Bryan 0:45 We went to the art museum this week. Didn't we? Jesse 0:48 Yeah, we did. It was really fun. Bryan 0:50 Yeah. So we are lucky enough to have the Yale Center for British Art in our hometown of New Haven where we're recording right now. And we went over there to look at some paintings by J. M. W. Turner. So a little background on him: Joseph Turner was born in 1775 and was part of the Romantic movement which emphasized dramatic emotion and the spiritual power of nature. So throughout his life Turner focused mainly on landscapes and seascapes, which might sound pretty dull, but I mean, you saw these. What did you think? Jesse 1:23 I thought they were epic. Yeah, they were so cool. There are these crazy oceans, these waves, and the clouds were pretty incredible too... Bryan 1:47 Look at how much of each composition the sky takes up. It's like two-thirds of the composition. Jesse 1:54 That's really interesting. Yeah, most of these ... I mean, there's some smaller ones. Jesse 1:59 landscape, but Bryan 1:59 Those aren't by Turner. Jesse 2:00 Oh, really? Bryan 2:01 Yes. So Turner was known for his seascapes. So let's go look at these clouds. Bryan 2:08 How long do you think it takes for a cloud like this to become a different cloud, to stop looking like that? Imagine you're lying on the ground, looking up at a cloud. Jesse 2:17 Yeah, like 10 minutes. Bryan 2:19 And how long do you think it took to paint this? Jesse 2:21 Like 10 minutes? Jesse 2:24 Like this whole painting? Bryan 2:25 Yeah, this whole painting. Jesse 2:26 It would take me weeks to paint. Bryan 2:28 And how big is this painting? Jesse 2:31 Six feet across and four feet tall. Bryan 2:33 So the perspective of the painting is as though you're sitting on the water, looking at these ships. The people on those ships are above the viewer. Do you see what I mean? It's like you're down on the water. Jesse 2:47 Yeah, it's very much a duck's-eye view. Bryan 2:50 What I'm trying to communicate is that these clouds, which are very much a moment in time, the size of the piece, and the perspective of the piece mean that he couldn't have done this on location. Jesse 2:59 Oh yeah, no way. He wasn't sitting out there with a canvas on his little...

Jesse takes us back to 1707, when a simple navigational error claimed the lives of hundreds of sailors, sparking a race to build the perfect clock. Bryan introduces us to a quirky mathematician known as "Pussy" who spent decades studying the colors on maps Check us out on Instagram You can find Bryan here and Jesse here

How do we draw the world? How do we see the world at all? We trace these questions back to Renaissance Italy and the Islamic Golden Age, stopping along the way to discuss supermoons, Monet’s cataracts, and more.