Stargazing | Star Trail | National Gallery

Many of the most intriguing paintings in the National Gallery show an understanding of the universe as reflected in art, and at the core of these is often the image of the astrologer or the astronomer surrounded by the instruments of the science and craft that he's so fascinated by. There are stars and astronomical symbols everywhere here in the National Gallery, but what you may be surprised to find out is that when you enter this wonderful great hall they are here, not above your heads where you might expect to see them, but they're on the floors in the very mosaics and we trample over them as soon as you get into the building. In 1928 Boris Anrett produced his first mosaic pavement for the National Gallery, The Labours of Life, and one of the scenes was astronomy, so he depicted an astronomer peering through his telescope up at a star-bespangled heavens and behind him we see an assistant. On the halfway landing we find Anrett's second mosaic for the National Gallery, this shows the awakening of the muses. One of the muses is Urania who is a muse of astronomy, she's shown holding a globe that is full of stars. I'm here in the National Gallery's research centre looking at the Fasciculus Medicinae printed in Venice in the 1500s. This is the Zodiac Man and it's showing the idea that houses of the Zodiac influenced various parts of the body, for example if the moon was in Gemini, representing the arms, it would be a bad time to let blood on the patient in that particular area of the body. We have a continuation of classical and medieval knowledge and thinking about how celestial bodies would influence the human body and events on earth. On the other hand, in some of the paintings in the Gallery's collection, for example Holbein's Ambassadors, there the celestial globe and the objects around those figures are doing something quite different, they're denoting that the figures are at the forefront of learning and by doing that they're indicating their high status in society. Holbein in the Ambassadors which he painted in London in 1533 has presented us with two full length, more or less life-size portraits of two French diplomats who were in London in that year and then between them he has painted shelves of objects and that top shelf is full of instruments which reference the heavens in different ways. Starting on the left-hand side we have a cylinder dial, so this is a portable sundial that you would have worn around your neck. Moving along the shelf there is an item called a quadrant and this was used for viewing the sun and stars above the horizon and measuring that particular angle, which was a crucial measurement for timekeeping and determining calendars. Then the torquetum and this is a calculating device that's used to convert between different astronomical coordinate systems. At the opposite end of the shelf right next to Jean de Dinteville himself you have a heavenly globe with a map of the stars. Celestial globes were used to aid calculations and observations of the stars. The celestial globe in Holbein's Ambassadors is depicted with such detail that we can tell that it was set to the 12th of July 1533 at 2.40pm, though why that is remains a mystery. Olivia van Dooren's painting of a young astronomer is quite a small painting. It shows a young man in a darkened interior bent over a celestial globe staring at a book opened in front of him. The Netherlands in the 17th century was one of the leading countries in the scientific investigation of astronomy. The young astronomer has lifted the globe out of its stand and that means that the fittings can no longer be used for astronomical calculations. What he's looking at really are the positions of the different constellations. It was still very much to be discovered. New planets, new stars, new galaxies and I think you get such a sense of impassioned absorption and fascination in this painting by van Dooren. This young man seeking to understand what the universe has to offer. We're less likely now to look at stars for spiritual guidance but we're still looking at them with very great intensity for thinking about their position, for thinking about their composition and when we gaze at the stars it's very clear that we're still asking questions about what our place is in the universe and really that's something that I can't ever see changing.