Science and art go naturally hand in hand. Both are means of investigation; artists, like scientists, study—materials, people, culture, history, religion, mythology, etc.—and learn to transform information into something else. In Ancient Greece, the word for art was techne, from which technique and technology are derived—terms that are aptly applied to both scientific and artistic practices.
For thousands of years artists and scientists have created stories or images about the sky and its constellations to explain our vast universe. Large monuments were constructed by ancient cultures to interpret the cosmos, while smaller objects, such as celestial spheres, astrolabes, and armillary spheres, were developed to navigate the unknown.
Astronomical motifs embellish humanity’s most ancient artifacts; yet, until 1609, nobody depicted the lights in the sky as places we might visit. However, when Galileo turned his telescope towards the Moon and saw its craters, valleys, plains, and mountains, and sketched them, he became the first astronomical artist, making the huge conceptual leap of depicting the Moon as another world.
Once the planets were recognized as material bodies similar to Earth, people assumed they must be inhabited. Johannes Kepler had already written the first science fiction novel in 1608; entitled Somnium (Dream), it recounts a visit to the Moon brought about by supernatural means. Kepler tried to imagine living conditions on that smaller, slowly-rotating world. Due to the lower gravity “everything is monstrously large in size; growth is very rapid”. To avoid the two-week-long lunar night, the Moon’s inhabitants “have no safe and secure established dwelling, but instead wander about their world in troops”. Point by point, Kepler deduced a plausible scenario from the available facts.
The Astronomer (1668) by Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer is another example of the profound connection between science and art. Vermeer’s painting celebrates an astronomer; yet, it equally celebrates the work of artists and the materials of this world. The painting hanging on the back wall was created by a local artist; the Middle Eastern carpet on the table was crafted by a foreign artist; Vermeer’s own paints—ground mineral pigments mixed with linseed oil—and brushes were produced by local artisans. The globe at which the astronomer gazes evidences the link between science and art most pointedly, for it demonstrates this astronomer’s, and his culture’s, combined interest in finely crafted objects and scientific systems, such as cartography and astronomy.
Although artists created fanciful drawings of alien beings in the intervening centuries, realistic renderings of the landscapes of other worlds came surprisingly late in the 19th century. The illustrations of James Nasmyth, a Scottish engineer and inventor, in his 1885 book about the Moon are remarkable. He created some of the first special effects shots by using a pinhole camera to photograph tabletop plaster models of lunar features. He retouched the photos to create a proper lunar environment; his dramatic alien peaks established a visual meme that persists even today in science fiction art.
French astronome–artist Lucien Rudaux (1874–1947) took astronomical illustration to the next level. His depictions of lunar landscapes were indeed the most accurate until space probes and astronauts photographed the Moon. Rudaux was also one of the first to venture beyond the Moon, depicting Jupiter and Saturn as they might appear from their satellites. His depiction of Jupiter from Io’s surface shows the bowing of Jupiter’s cloud bands toward the pole as would be observed from near the planet; in a telescope, the bands appear parallel.
Science fiction magazines and picture essay magazines were once a major outlet for space art, often featuring planets, spaceships, and dramatic alien landscapes. Born in 1888, architect-turned-artist Chesley Bonestell is the grand master of astronomical art. His paintings have a near-photographic realism that elevated the idea of space travel from fantasy to possibility. The strength of Bonestell’s work was the portrayal of exotic worlds with their own alien beauty, often giving a sense of destination, as much as of the technological means of getting there. His artwork in the 1947 book, The Conquest of Space, inspired the scientists and engineers who made space travel a reality.
Astronomical or space art is largely an outgrowth of the artistic standards of Bonestell. It is an aspect of art the primary emphasis of which is to give viewers visual impressions of alien and exotic places in the cosmos; the source of visual inspiration that our growing abilities to gather and propagate have spread through mass culture. The first photographs of the entire Earth by satellites and manned Apollo missions brought a new sense of our world as an island in empty space, promoting ideas of the essential unity of Humanity.
Today, many astronomical artists have traded paintbrushes for computer styluses; 3D modeling software enables us to create images of breathtaking realism, but the challenge of interpreting data from telescopes and space probes remains the same. Astronomical artists play a role similar to that of medical illustrators, in that they attempt to depict aspects of nature beyond ordinary experience. Even as space probes complete a preliminary exploration of the worlds of the solar system, our imaginations can range farther, to the realm of exoplanets and black holes, to the frontier of the observable universe, and to the dawn of time itself.
References
artic.edu
cosmographica.com
iaaa.org
crystalinks.com