Radio 4’s The Art of Innovation is a series that — for once — deserves the label ‘landmark’

Radio 4, how do I love thee? Rather as one loves the flocked wallpaper that came with the house. It isn’t what one would have chosen — but it is home. Yes, even when plangent piano music indicates a meaningful drama is about to begin. Yes, even when said drama is a woefully wooden effort about Amy ‘a typical modern 18-year-old — who happens to be trans’. Sample quote: ‘You’ve had me for 18 years, now I want me for me!’ Sound effect: peevishly slammed door (mine). New trans dramas are, of course, welcome, but Woman’s Hour drama is often a bit miss and miss.

But then, on Monday, came a real treat: the start of a new 20-part series, The Art of Innovation, in which each short episode looks closely at a work of art, using it as a jumping-off point for a debate about how art interprets, promotes and critiques scientific progress. It’s a series that (for once) deserves the term ‘landmark’, and there is a tie-in exhibition at the Science Museum, London. It opens with the Caravaggio of our Midlands Enlightenment, Joseph Wright of Derby, and will go on to the goddess of the stringed ‘Winged Figure’ on Oxford Street, Dame Barbara Hepworth — and beyond. I hear there is even an episode on dark matter, but it has yet to transmigrate to BBC previews.

Initially I was sceptical, because radio is not a great place to discuss specific artworks. It always strikes me as putting the casual listener at a huge disadvantage, and why waste airtime describing something that simply needs to be seen? But here co-presenters and Science Museum luminaries Sir Ian Blatchford and Dr Tilly Blyth adeptly charge their descriptions with interpretation, from the philosopher demonstrating the orrery in Joseph Wright’s painting who is ‘draped in cloth like an Old Testament figure’ to the rain spots just visible on cloudspotter Constable’s ‘skying’ sketchbooks.