The way to the stars

Per ardua ad astra . . . the way to the stars is the theme of the new exhibition at ever delightful Compton Verney. It's a series of glimpses and hints at (mainly Western) man's aspirations, ambitions and fears when faced with the mysterious universe above his head, his attempts to make sense of it and, if possible, to dominate it.

The exhibition, The Starry Messenger: Visions of the Universe, takes its title and its starting point from Galileo's Sidereus Nuncius, of 1610, shown in a beautiful copy lent by Corpus Christi College, epitomising the new dangerous knowledge of the universe and man's humble place in it, which brought Galileo himself into such agonising conflict with established authority but, ultimately, broke its chains and gave us a wider freedom of thought.

His was not, of course, the first measurement of the stars. The compass and the quadrant had for centuries been at the service of navigation and husbandry. But that Galilean telescope was a different messenger from the stars. It brought them closer. Could they be visited? Were they inhabited by fearful aliens, or comic green men? Were they for children's fantasy? And, most disturbing, where was God?

These visionary explorations are displayed in the show though not, of course, answered in books, paintings, videos and lightboxes, often juxtaposing works many years and places apart. Some of the smallest may be the most valuable or least eye-catching, like Blake's illustration I want ! I want! for his children's book (1793) with its ladder to the moon, or John Russell's 1797 attempt to model the moon's surface. Shown in the same case as the Galileo is Discovery of a New World in the Moon, (1640) by the famous Warden of Wadham and friend of Sir Christopher Wren, John Wilkins, already imagining the conquest of gravity and so of space. Yet the near contemporary Coelum Christianum (1627) shapes stars and constellations into religious forms in an older tradition. There's also a fine early printed book of 1540 from Ingoldstadt by Apianus, one of many magnificent items on loan from the Royal Astronomical Society, mysteriously titled Astronomicum Caesareum. It combines printed information on the seasons with movable discs and images, showing the new' medium of print in use to communicate astronomical knowledge.

The human need to give a familiar name to the incomprehensible universe to see bears, swans, dogs, or ancient gods and warriors in the constellations can be seen in splendid books by Flamsteed and Bode, and, more bizarrely, in Urania's Mirror, a set of 32 hand-coloured cards produced by one Richard Bloxham. This is an item on whose purpose I would have welcomed more information.

The West Gallery takes us into modern times, where, despite or because of much more knowledge of the stars, there seems less imagination. Instead there's fantasy. For once, that grossly overused term is appropriate.

Alongside David Hardy's impression of the first moon landing (1956) is Aleksandra Mir's re-creation (1999) First Woman on the Moon on a sandy Dutch beach. Spencer Firth's large plaque in aluminium and rhinestones, Sky, slyly commemorates the purported UFO landing in New Mexico in 1947.

Among several pieces by Wolfgang Tillmans are a couple based on the 1998 solar eclipse Eclipse Watchers strongly reminiscent of Hopper. Paul McDevitt's Flatness Problem combines starry fantasy with (it's hoped) the artists' names that details still to be settled on the press day, but should make an interesting souvenir.

The display of sci-fi mags goes back to 1926 in an impressive selection lent by Liverpool University Science Fiction Foundation. No, I had never heard of it either.

The presence here of pages from John Cage's 1961 Atlas Eclipticalis, a typically wilful attempt by the composer to create the music of the stars by using astral movements as recorded in maps, reminded me that there is no music to accompany the visit, though celestial harmony had been such an important concept of earlier thought. Not Doctor Who' please, but what about Haydn's Il Mondo della Luna for frivolous moments, Messaien (almost anything) for contemplation, and Bliss's stirring Things to come if we are still travelling hopefully.

If the ardua' are taking over from the astra' and you would welcome a sit-down, there's a short video by William Kentridge, Journey to the Moon, and a more extended sequence of 116 images by Steve McQueen Once upon a Time, inspired by the NASA time capsule of human memorabilia carried by the Voyager space probes. This has a soundtrack, but it's an example of speaking in tongues' and unintelligible to the laity.

The Starry Messenger flies till September 10 at Compton Verney, which is north-east of Banbury, some six miles from junction 12 on the M40. It is open Tuesday to Sunday, 10am-5pm. Good grub too.