Happy Accidents: Will You Open the Door When Opportunity Knocks?

William Henry Perkin

'Awake! arise! the hour is late!
Angels are knocking at thy door!
They are in haste and cannot wait,
And once departed come no more.’
HW Longfellow, ‘A Fragment' 

I recently attended an exhibition exploring the intimate relationship between art and science. ‘The Art of Innovation’ at the Science Museum, London, considers how creative thought has been integral to many scientific breakthroughs and how technological change has inspired a good deal of great art. (The exhibition runs until 26 January, but you can also listen to a BBC podcast on the same theme.)

'I am enough of the artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.’
Albert Einstein

Observe how the train revolutionised timekeeping, how the study of botany precipitated the first photography book, how Polaroids inspired David Hockney. Learn about experiments with laughing gas, about orreries, artificial limbs and delta wing jets. Examine John Constable’s records of the clouds over Hampstead Heath, Eadweard Muybridge’s photographic studies of ‘The Horse in Motion’, and Ada Lovelace’s illustration of the first algorithm - the unassuming Note G. It’s fascinating stuff.

I was particularly taken with the story of mauve.

In 1856 the 18-year-old student chemist William Perkin was experimenting in his shed in Shadwell, East London. He wanted to see if he could synthesize the anti-malarial drug quinine from aniline, a derivative of coal tar. The experiment failed and he was left with a black sludge. Still curious, he determined to dry this sludge into a powder, which he then dissolved in methylated spirit. This process produced a rich purple solution. The inquisitive Perkin then tried dipping a piece of white silk into the solution and was struck by how well the fabric took the purple colour.

Most fabric dyes at that time were extracted from plants and lychens, and were expensive and limited in variety. The industrial revolution had created a booming textile industry and an increasing demand for new, more affordable colours.

Assured by dye experts that this new compound could function well as a commercial dye, Perkin and his family built a factory near Harrow and marketed the dye under the sophisticated French name ‘mauve’. The British public, the great and the good, and even Queen Victoria, were delighted with the new, vibrant purple fabrics. Mauve became the most fashionable colour of the 1850s and 1860s. It was the first of a new generation of cheap, high quality synthetic dyes.

‘The mauve complaint is very catching: indeed, cases might be cited, where the lady of the house having taken the infection, all the family have caught it before the week was out.’ 
Punch, 1859

Of course the history books are filled with great scientific discoveries and inventions that began with a chance event, a happy accident.

Penicillin was discovered by Alexander Fleming after he returned to his lab from a two-week holiday to find that a mould had grown on some of his culture and killed the staphylococci he’d been investigating.

The Kellogg brothers invented corn flakes after boiling wheat for too long in a sanatorium kitchen.

Velcro was conceived by Swiss engineer George de Mestral after he got burrs stuck in his clothes when he went hiking.

The microwave was created by engineer Percy Spencer after his chocolate bar melted while he was testing a new vacuum tube.

Silk dress dyed with William Henry Perkin’s mauve aniline dye. Photo by SSPL/Getty Images.

‘One sometimes finds what one is not looking for.'
Alexander Flemming

We can all probably think of instances in our own careers when an unexpected occurrence has produced a fortuitous outcome – a random experience, a misguided experiment, a serendipitous conversation. The unforeseen consequences of unplanned events often deliver breakthroughs and revelations. Chance can play a key role in innovation.

But we have to be agile and alert to respond to a happy accident. We have to be curious, open to distraction, prepared to take a different path. The window of opportunity rarely remains open for very long.

Perkin was probably not the first scientist to conduct that particular experiment on aniline. But whereas others had thrown away the black sludge, he persisted, sensing there was something worthwhile further down the line.

I suspect that sometimes we’re too focused on achieving our objectives to be distracted by the unplanned and unexpected. We may be too time-constrained to pursue our curiosity; too disciplined to redirect our resources. We’ll never know how many chances have passed us by because we were cautious, blinkered or blind.

Of course we all want to be beneficiaries of random good fortune. But we have to ask ourselves: Are we sufficiently open-minded to spot a happy accident? Are we willing to pursue a possibility even when it’s not what we originally envisaged? Will we open the door when opportunity knocks?

'Getting stuck on you, baby,
Was the last thing I had in mind.
But now you got me wanting you, baby,
Want your love all the time.
I slipped, tripped and fell in love,
Fell in love with you, baby.’
Ann Peebles, ‘Slipped, Tripped and Fell in Love’ (G Jackson)

No. 260

Julia Margaret Cameron: Sometimes Truth Is Out-Of-Focus

'What is focus - and who has the right to say what focus is the legitimate focus?'
Julia Margaret Cameron

It’s two hundred years since the birth of the experimental photographer Julia Margaret Cameron and there are two exhibitions in London celebrating her work. (The V&A until 21 February; The Science Museum until 31 March)

Although Cameron came to photography late in life (she first took up a camera at the age of 48), she was a pioneer in the understanding of photography as an art form. Most of the early enthusiasts regarded photography as a science that should concern itself with accuracy and precision. Cameron aimed to ‘record the greatness of the inner as well as the outer man.’

Certainly many of Cameron’s portraits have an intimacy that still resonates today. She shot in profile or face-on, making astute use of lighting and shadow. Her sitters have a stillness, a seriousness, that suggest the private, individual, interior life. It’s as if she’s caught them on their own in a room looking in the mirror.

Cameron came in for a good deal of criticism from the Victorian photographic establishment for the perceived ‘mistakes’ in her work. There were blotches and swirls resulting from the uneven application of chemicals and smearing when the plates were wet. And many of Cameron’s images were slightly out-of-focus.

‘What in the name of all the nitrate of silver that ever turned white into black have these pictures in common with good photography? Smudged, torn, dirty, undefined and in some cases almost unreadable, there is hardly one of them that ought not to have been washed off the plate as soon as its image had appeared.’
The Photographic News

Cameron believed that her technically flawed images conveyed greater emotion, truth and impact. And some of the more enlightened critics of the time agreed.

‘Mrs Cameron was the first person who had the wit to see her mistakes were her successes and henceforward to make her portraits systematically out-of-focus.’
Macmillan Magazine

The state of being in-focus is of course a technical matter. But it is also something that is socially determined; something that is felt.

In a fabulous scene from Woody Allen’s 1997 movie, Deconstructing Harry, a camera crew is having problems shooting the actor Mel, played by Robin Williams. After inspecting their lenses, they conclude that there’s nothing wrong with their equipment. It’s Mel that is out-of-focus.

‘Mel, I don’t know how to tell you this, but you’re soft. You’re out-of-focus…I want you to go home; and want you to get some rest. See if you can just sharpen up.’

I have a lot of sympathy for Mel. Sometimes we just don’t seem to be in tune with everyone else. We’re out of step, misaligned. Sometimes we feel out-of-focus.

Could the communications and marketing industries learn from Julia Margaret Cameron? Would we ever willingly seek to be out-of-focus?

We are for the most part cursed by an obsession with polish and perfection. But this very finesse may diminish our ability to communicate authenticity, integrity and emotion. Conveying truth is not the same as conveying fact. Facts are hard, precise, unyielding. Truth is a matter for intuition, interpretation and imagination.

We could also learn from Julia a singularity of purpose, a determination in the face of critical pressure.

My mother was a keen amateur painter. She worked in oils using a palette knife, a method taught by the TV artist Nancy Kominsky (Paint Along with Nancy was a big deal in the UK in the 1970s). I once came across her painting a series of seagulls on a rock. There were four or five of them all in a line, pointing in the same direction. It looked to me as if they were queueing for a bus. I told mum that this wouldn’t happen in nature; that things are less regimented in real life. She told me she didn’t care. This was the picture she wanted to paint.

No. 65