The Universe in Culture: The Physics of the Stars as Artistic Inspiration

Abstract

From the earliest observations of the starry sky to contemporary cosmology, astronomical discoveries have transformed not only our scientific understanding of the Universe but also the ways in which societies have represented and experienced the cosmos through art, literature, and music. This article argues that major paradigm shifts in the physics of celestial bodies function as catalysts for cultural reconfigurations, generating new representational repertoires across artistic and aesthetic domains – a process conceptualized here as scientific-aesthetic translation. Drawing on Kuhnian philosophy of science, the Science and Technology Studies (STS) concept of co-production, and the UNESCO 2003 Convention on Intangible Cultural Heritage, we develop an analytical framework that moves beyond the descriptive cataloguing of art-science connections to examine the mechanisms through which cosmological knowledge is culturally appropriated and reimagined. The scope is deliberately cross-cultural: paradigm shifts – from the geocentric model to Newtonian mechanics, Einsteinian relativity, and the cosmology of accelerated expansion – are analyzed alongside artistic responses from both Western and non-Western traditions, including Islamic astronomical aesthetics, Mesoamerican cosmological architecture, Buddhist stupa symbolism, and the music-cosmology theory of Al-Kindi and the Ikhwan al-Safa. Contemporary examples – particularly artistic responses to imagery from the James Webb Space Telescope and the Event Horizon Telescope, and the emerging practice of astronomical data sonification – are examined as new frontiers of scientific-aesthetic translation that challenge established disciplinary boundaries. The article contributes to heritage studies by demonstrating that the cultural history of the cosmos constitutes a layered and globally distributed intangible heritage deserving systematic interdisciplinary attention.