This issue sees the concluding article in the first part of a series by the art historian Martin Kemp. In previous articles, he has dealt with scientific ideas and perspectives embedded in 27 artists' handling of their subject matter. Such an approach is illuminating provided one understands the science (as Kemp clearly does), the art is worth looking at and analysing (as at least most of it has been), and especially where a writer delivers a highly focused presentation (as is inevitably required in a one-page format). On pages 875-876, and at slightly greater length, Kemp places much of what he has discussed into a broader summarizing framework. Many readers will no doubt have already formed their own judgements. But the result of the series has surely been at least a broadened range of readers' awareness of artists and a deepened appreciation of how art works, as well as lively discussions in other fora, such as museums and galleries.

The series now shifts to the same art historian's perspective on the way scientific concepts and objects are visualized, starting next week with a discussion of the use of images in this journal. Kemp will subsequently deal with scientific images with the same three-week cyclical approach as previously: pre-twentieth century, classic twentieth century, contemporary.

Physicists in America, nervous about pseudoscience, are worrying about a proposed public statement (see page 849) which in draft form emphasizes science's objective and repeatable qualities, while (more controversially) welcoming complementary approaches to the understanding of nature. Kemp's series has illuminated artistic subjectivity and objectivity. In doing so, however, he has shown not that art assists scientific understanding, but that scientific insight can provide a fruitful stimulus to some of the most powerful of artistic interpretations.