Only rarely do the interests of art and of science come into direct conflict — although, as it happens, this week provides three examples. The balance of art and science within the Musée de l'Homme in Paris is now being resolved after heated debate (see page 217). Britain's Labour government's National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, although potentially beneficial for both, nevertheless promises to set them in competition for funds (see page 222). And the artist Eduardo Paolozzi has been at the centre of comments that his newly unveiled sculpture of Newton, in imitating William Blake's allegedly snide portrait, could be seen as casting science in a bad light (see page 221).

Such controversies are untypical. Far more frequent, I believe, are attempts to see both enterprises as positive influences on each other, and to that end, much has been written comparing art and science and attempting to blur the boundaries between the two — with sceptics riposting that such discussions are ultimately of little value. It is indeed surely true that, for some artists and some scientists, the moment of creation can be of similar character — an inner revisualization of what they have perceived, leading on the one hand to a personal and subjective rendition, and on the other to a logical train of thought and new understanding that is quickly incorporated into an impersonal scientific edifice. It is not clear, however, where all of that leads us.

Furthermore, science has influenced art — as anybody who has taken an interest in artists' understanding and use of colour and perspective throughout history knows — whereas examples of art influencing science are thin on the ground. And both have been more profoundly influenced by technology. The temptation to link the two is particularly strong when considering the turn of the century, when relativity and quantum mechanics transformed scientists' perceptions. At the same time, artists and composers were undertaking a similarly profound re-evaluation of their ‘languages’, resulting, for example, in expressionism, cubism and atonality. That coincidence of revolutions is tantalizing, but evidence that there was in fact significant cross-fertilization remains elusive.

When Antonia Payne of the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art invited Nature to be involved in a project linking us with artists — sponsored by the Arts Council of England — I was somewhat sceptical. Much of the discussion about art and science is of marginal importance and largely irrelevant to practitioners of both, while most people turn to each for very different things. So I asked to look at the works of candidate artists before deciding whether to pursue it. On seeing the catalogues, however, I realized that this project need not result in frothy and inconclusive discussions or a spurious attempt to marry science and art. Rather, the opportunity to allow the use of Nature as a wholly original context for art was intriguing though risky. I was being asked to hand over part of this publication to an artist — in other words, that page of Nature (and by association the rest of the issue) would itself become an original artwork. Other than the right to a blanket rejection if I found the outcome wholly offensive, I would lose any right to editorial intervention.

I agreed to do so. I am no expert in contemporary art, but I was convinced that at least one of the candidates (hitherto unknown to me) was a visually stimulating artist exploring in an original way the associations we make with images and objects — a judgement which, I was delighted to discover, was in line with international recognition and resulted in her being shortlisted for this year's (always controversial) Turner prize. So it is that Cornelia Parker's images, the first set in a weekly series of five, intentionally anonymous and unobtrusive in their presentation, can be found somewhere in this week's News and Views section.

Beneath the surface

Parker is content, for now at least, to let others make what they will of her response to this journal, rather than proclaim her intentions or offer explanations. Indeed, the impact of good art can never be fully explained. On the other hand, objectivity in art (and subjectivity in science) are legitimate and stimulating targets of exploration. Analysts' persistent failure to agree on a harmonic explanation of the famous chord at the start of Wagner's Tristan and Isolde may reflect its extraordinarily tantalizing emotive character — one that pervades the entire opera. But we should resist the idea that analysing works of art, and penetrating their objective structure, undermines their capacity to stir the emotions, just as the physicist Richard Feynman refuted the idea that discovering physical laws underlying nature diminishes our sense of wonder at it.

And knowledge of science can help in the appreciation of art, especially where artists themselves have used a scientifically based awareness of the structures and mechanisms of the natural world in generating their more or less subjective creations. It is in that spirit that perceptions shared by scientists and artists will be explored in a weekly series of articles and illustrations discussing art from the Renaissance to the contemporary. That series, by Martin Kemp, professor of art history at the University of Oxford (although originally trained as a scientist), will follow immediately after Parker's.

This, Nature's Opinion page, is usually anonymous because its staff believe in the concept of this publication having its own point of view, with final responsibility resting with the Editor. But editorial control has been exerted here to relinquish a small part of the publication to artistic expression. That warrants a more personal acknowledgement of responsibility. It also calls for an acknowledgement that these series are occidental in focus, whereas Nature's readership is also drawn from other regions in which discussions of art and science might take a very different direction. So I conclude with an invitation to readers of any origin to send in comments that might usefully broaden joint considerations of art and science, and appreciation of one stimulated by the other.