Thoughts about the portrait:

As an artist encountering a portrait of an individual, I imagine a personal connection over time between myself and the subject. I'm able to stand before a painting, knowing that the subject likely looked at the same painting. This places a mere two degrees of separation between myself and, in this case, Galileo, who started us on a path of discovery which brought us to our present understanding of the Solar System and the universe around us. When I see this painting and think of the work and the discoveries he made possible, I marvel at the changes that may come with new discoveries in the future.

D. Davidson, Hayden Artist, 1987-2000

With a telescope of his own design, Galileo discovered spots on the Sun, Saturn's rings, and the moons of Jupiter. He also conducted experiments with motion and gravity. One can, without dispute, declare Galileo to be the world's first astrophysicist. Just four years before his death, he is portrayed here looking very tired—not simply because of his accumulated age, but because he spent much of his later years under house arrest. At the time, the ancient views of Aristotle were held by the Catholic Church to be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Part of those ideas was the claim that Earth was the center of all motion in the universe. Through his telescope he showed that, among other things, Jupiter's moons orbited Jupiter, not Earth. When combined with his arrogance in the face of papal authority, Galileo was duly prosecuted by the Inquisition. A reminder that we owe much of our cosmic understanding to a small number of pioneers who have come before us, and who have suffered for it.

N.D. Tyson, Hayden Director

Comments taken from the Hayden Planetarium's Art in the Service of Science exhibit, 1996.