2 minute read
moon art
ode to luna: the earliest
By Ron Evans
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As long as humans have been developed enough to push a little dirt around with a stick we have been drawing the moon. There’s little mystery why we have never really lost that fascination with the mystical satellite, nor is it hard to understand why we are obsessed with drawing, painting, sculpting, photographing and writing about the moon.
I collected some of the earliest known examples of these lunar tributes I could find - while gazing out at a full moon! The next time you are running dry creatively, look up and find thousands of years of inspiration, faithfully floating there like a pristine and patient muse shining down.
At least until we began projecting massive adverts onto its surface. Yes. That’s an actual thing a group of assholes are working tirelessly to make a reality. Look up Moonvertising for a deeper, depressing look into that plan. It’s only a matter of time, so enjoy her while we can.
Lunar eclipses, MS Français 574, detail fol. 99r, in Gossuin de Metz, Image du Monde, 1320, watercolor on parchment.
depictions of the moon
Nebra Sky Disc - thought to be the oldest depiction of the universe. Found in present-day Germany, the disc is dated to the first millenium BCE. Ideal Lunar Landscape by James Nasmyth, ca. 1873. Plaster casting of how Nasmyth imagined the surface of the moon.
Étienne Léopold, Mare Humorum, from The Trouvelot Astronomical Drawings Manual, 1881–1882, chromolithograph.
Philippe de Champaigne, The Vision of St. Juliana of Mont Cornillon, c. 1645–1650, oil on canvas. Johannes Hevelius, Topographical lunar map, from Selenographia (Gedansk, country Typis Hünefeldianis, 1647), engraving.
Michael Ostendorfer, Lunar eclipse from Peter Apian, Astronomicum Caesareum (Ingosltadt, Germany Petrus Appianus 1540), Hand-colored woodcut.
Galileo Galilei, Sketches of the Moon, Ms. Gal. 48, fol. 28r and v (with horoscope), 1609, brown ink and wash on paper. Sebastiano del Piombo, Pieta, 1514–1517, oil on panel Museo Civico, Viterbo (cropped).
Giotto di Bondone, Detail of the Last Judgment, c. 1301–1306, fresco. Scrovegni Chapel, Padua. Web Gallery of Art.
