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Einstein's theory of relativity created a profound shift in human thought, overturning deeply held certainties about time and space, appearance and reality, stillness, movement and speed. It revolutionised physics, and its verification in 1919 by British astronomers established Einstein as the most famous scientist on the planet. But ideas as reality-bending as these couldn’t stay confined to one sphere for long. In this feature, writer Jerry Brotton explores how Einstein’s thought crossed over and transformed the arts – from fiction, poetry, painting and sculpture to classical music and jazz – a transformation that began in the early 1920s and still reverberating a century later.

Hearing from artists, musicians, physicists, historians and writers, Jerry uncovers the impact of the theory of relativity on authors such as Virginia Woolf and William Carlos Williams; on the visual arts, including Picasso’s cubist paintings, Alexander Calder’s incredible kinetic sculptures and contemporary artist Conrad Shawcross’s installations; on music, from Philip Glass’s opera Einstein on the Beach to John Coltrane’s study of relativity to transform the harmonic structures of jazz. Creative boundaries between science and art dissolved. Artists and writers became fluent in new ideas of space-time and explored how to represent them in print, on canvas and to the ear.

Perhaps it’s no coincidence that Einstein himself, who welcomed the exchange of ideas with artists and loved music, would sometimes consider his own thinking in aesthetic as well as scientific terms, quoting the poet Keats: 'Beauty is truth, truth beauty'.

Presenter: Jerry Brotton
Producer: Simon Hollis

A Brook Lapping Production for Â鶹Éç Radio 4