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Cathy FitzGerald invites you to discover new details in old masterpieces. Each episode of Moving Pictures is devoted to a single artwork – and you’re invited to look as well as listen, by following a link to a high-resolution image on Google Arts & Culture. Zoom in and you can see the pores of the canvas, the sweep of individual brushstrokes, the shimmer of pointillist dots.

This episode, we’re looking at an 18th century masterpiece from the collection of the National Gallery, London: An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump by Joseph Wright of Derby. The painting takes us to a dark room in a grand house where a scientific experiment is being conducted by candlelight. A cockatoo struggles in a vacuum created by an air pump. Around the table, a group of family and friends watch – their differing reactions so lifelike and subtly portrayed, we’re drawn into the cruel drama. Will the bird live or die?

To see the high-resolution image of the painting on Google Arts & Culture, visit www.bbc.co.uk/movingpictures. Scroll down and follow the link to explore An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump.

Interviewees: Christine Riding, Lucy Bamford, Amina Wright and Leah Kharibian.

Producer and presenter: Cathy FitzGerald

Executive producer: Sarah Cuddon
Mix engineer: Mike Woolley
Art history consultant: Leah Kharibian

A White Stiletto production for ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio 4.
Picture credit: NG725: Joseph Wright ‘of Derby’, An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump, 1768, oil on canvas, 183 x 244cm, © The National Gallery, London.