The elegant art of science

A feast of science and art opened on Sept 13 at Beijing's National Centre for the Performing Arts, marking the 21st National Science Popularization Day, and the 14th Beijing Science Carnival.

Guests including Ren Dingcheng, editor of the Classics of Science series, soprano Zhou Xiaolin, and He Jing, a young scholar from Tsinghua University's Academy of Fine Arts, who led the audience on an exploration of the intersection between science and art.

Part of the "When Science Meets Art — A Reading Salon on Classic Scientific Texts" series, the event was organized by institutions including the NCPA, the Beijing Association for Science and Technology, and Peking University Press. The theme was "Science and Love in Famous World Paintings", and focused on the work by Antoine Lavoisier, the father of modern chemistry, to facilitate a poetic dialogue between science and art.

Zhou performed arias from Mozart's opera, The Marriage of Figaro, transporting the audience to the revolutionary tumult of 18th-century Europe.