The science of geology appeared at a time when artists were trying to get close to nature: geologists became artists and artists became geologists. Geological knowledge, and especially Lyell’s ‘Principles’, changed the way painters saw the world to the point where the critic John Ruskin could say that in art the laws of geology “are the foundation of all other truths”. A new sense of time and the character of landscape had emerged.  

Starting with William Smith’s famous first geological map, housed next to the Royal Academy, the talk explores 'rock awareness' in the artists of Smith’s generation. We look at the work of little known geologist-painters alongside the work of Cotman and Turner. Pre-Raphaelite landscape and Cézanne’s quarry paintings are considered, as well as work by lesser known artists like the Australian Ernest William Christmas. We see that twentieth century figures like Paul Nash and Henry Moore in his drawings used geological ideas in surprising, innovative ways, and note that not so long ago Tracey Emin married a rock in her garden: "It will never leave me".

[Please note that this replaces the lecture: Perdita Robinson - Actress, Poet and Fashion Icon, which had to be cancelled at short notice.]