Apples & People explores the astonishing story of the apple, connecting its diverse history to humanity and culture. Based upon a newly commissioned global map of the apple which traces a network of stories from the ancient world to the present day, this online programme and associated social media will reveal just how significant and iconic this humble fruit has become.
Singer/Songwriter Jake Morley has been commissioned by Apples & People to write and perform this song about Isaac Newton and his inspiration under an apple tree.
‘My young daughter is utterly obsessed with apples. While other interests come and go, they are a constant. I never take her out without at least one in the bag. When it came to writing about Newton’s famous moment of inspiration under a tree, I couldn’t not include that.’ Jake Morley
This commission is part of our Apple Story, ‘Newton and the Apple Tree’, published on 5h July 2021.
We publish this new Apple Story on the 5th July to mark the anniversary of the publication of Sir Isaac Newton’s hugely influential Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687) in which he laid down the foundations for his theories on the laws of gravity and motion.
There’s art from the collection of The Royal Society, where Newton was formerly a President, featuring his family farm Woolsthorpe Manor as well as a piece of apple tree wood from the farm that has travelled out of this world into space and has been returned to us on earth.
But what happened to Newton’s original tree?
Apple tree at Woolsthorpe Manor, 1840, George Rowe after Thomas Howison, Drawing © The Royal Society
Emily Gravett - Bear Apple © the artist
Billy Apple® - Cut 1964, offset lithograph on T.H. Saunders paper, edition of 25 Courtesy of The Mayor Gallery, London © Billy Apple ®
Fruit Label © Wenatchee Valley Museum and Cultural Center
John Everett Millais, Spring (Apple Blossoms) 1856-59 © Lady Lever Art GalleryFollow us on social media:
Xincai Tan
Home, JournalWritten by Xincai Tan, ‘Píng Guǒ Shì Jiè’ tells of the domestic apple originating in the Tian Shan, the Heavenly Mountains on China’s western border, and spreading around the world from east to west.