Space art
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Space art, also known as astronomical art, is a genre that visually represents the universe through various artistic styles, or sends artworks into space. The development of space art was closely linked to advancements in technology, which enabled more precise observations of the night sky. Space art may communicate ideas about space, often including an artistic interpretation of cosmological phenomena and scientific discoveries. Some space artists work directly with scientists to explore new ways to expand the arts, humanities, and cultural expression relative to space.
For many decades, visual artists have explored the topic of space using traditional painting media, followed recently by the use of digital media for the same purpose. Science fiction magazines and picture-essay magazines were one of the first major outlets for space art, often featuring planets, spaceships, and dramatic alien landscapes. Chesley Bonestell, R. A. Smith, Lucien Rudaux, David A. Hardy, and Ludek Pesek were some of the prominent artists in the early days of the genre, actively involved in visualizing topics such as space exploration. Astronomers and experts in rocketry played roles in inspiring and informing artists in this genre.
NASA’s second administrator, James E. Webb, created the space agency's Space Art program in 1962, four years after its founding.[1] Bonestell's work in this program often depicted various celestial bodies and landscapes, highlighting both the destinations and the imagined technologies used to reach them.
Astronomical art
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Astronomical art is a genre of space art that focuses on visual representations of outer space. It encompasses various themes, including the space environment as a new frontier for humanity, depictions of alien worlds, representations of extreme phenomena like black holes, and artistic concepts inspired by astronomy.
Astronomical art emerged as a distinct genre in the 1940s and 1950s. Chesley Bonestell was recognized for his skills in addressing perspective challenges and creating visual representations of astronomical concepts. Contemporary artists continue to contribute to the visualization of ideas within the space community, such as depicting theoretical capabilities for interstellar travel and illustrating hypothetical deep-space phenomena.[2][3]
Astronomical art is the most recent of several art movements that have explored ideas emerging from the ongoing exploration of Earth. Finding its roots in genres such as the Hudson River School or Luminism, most astronomical artists use traditional painting methods or digital equivalents in a way that brings the viewer to the frontiers of human knowledge gathered in the exploration of space. Such works usually portray things in the visual language of realism extrapolated to exotic environments, whose details reflect ongoing knowledge and educated guesswork. An example of the process of creating astronomical art would be studying and visiting desert environments to experience something of what it might be like on Mars and painting based on such experiences. Another would be to hear of something, and then seek out published articles or experts in the field. Usually, there is an artistic effort to emphasize the favorable visual elements, just as a photographer composes a picture. Notable astronomical art often reflects the artist's interpretation and imagination regarding the subject portrayed.
Science fiction magazines such as Fantasy and Science Fiction, Amazing, Astounding (later renamed Analog), and Galaxy were significant platforms for space and astronomical art in the 1950s. Picture essay magazines of the time, such as Life, Collier's, and Coronet, were other major outlets for such art. Today, astronomical art can be seen in magazines such as Sky and Telescope, The Planetary Report, and occasionally in Scientific American. The NASA fine arts program has been an ongoing effort to hire artists to create works generally specific to a particular space project. The program documents historical events in recognizable form for professional artists. The NASA Fine Arts Program operated in an era of forward progress under its first head director, James Dean.[4] Even then, pictorial realism seemed a subset rather than a dominant visual influence.
The works that document space flight situations, such as those referenced above, are similar in concept to government efforts during World War II to send artists to battle zones to document things as they saw them, much of which appeared in contemporary Life magazines. Most of today's widely published space and astronomical artists have belonged to the International Association of Astronomical Artists since 1983.
Photography
[edit]The first photographs of the entire Earth by satellites[5] and crewed Apollo missions[6] brought a new sense of our world as an island in empty space and promoted ideas of the essential unity of humanity.[7] Photographs taken by explorers on the Moon shared the experience of being in another world. The famous Pillars of Creation[8] Hubble Space Telescope and other Hubble photos often evoke intense responses from viewers, for example, Hubble's planetary nebula images.[9]
Artistry
[edit]Space artists may work closely with space scientists and engineers to help them visualize and develop their scientific and technological concepts of space exploration. Other forms of pictorial space art bring the viewer to inner visions inspired, directly or otherwise, by the fruits of the expanding vision of humanity. Some aspects of such art pay visual homage to outer space and popular ideas of life on other worlds, including alien visitation visions, dream symbolism, psychedelic imagery, and other influences on contemporary visionary art.
Artists have experienced free-fall conditions during flights flown with NASA, the Russian and French Space Agencies, and the Zero Gravity Arts Consortium. Early efforts by artists to have art pieces placed in space have already been accomplished with painting, holography, micro-gravity mobiles, floating literary works, and sculpture.[10]
History
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The history of space art spans various periods, with early examples seen in the depiction of celestial bodies in ancient artifacts. For instance, the 'Land Grant to Ḫunnubat-Nanaya Kudurru,' a Babylonian limestone artifact from the 12th century BC, features early representations of Venus, the lunar crescent, and the solar disk. Albrecht Altdorfer's painting The Battle of Issus (1529) show the curvature of the Earth from a great height.[11] Galileo's sketches of the Moon from the Sidereus Nuncius (1610) were published among other early descriptions of the Moon's topography. In 1711, Donato Creti painted a series of astronomers viewing other planets of the Solar System through a telescope to interest the Vatican in establishing an astronomical observatory.
The genre continued to evolve. In the 1870s, Étienne Léopold Trouvelot published a series of Chromolithographs of his pastels of astronomical subjects. In 1874, James Carpenter and James Nasmyth's work The Moon: Considered as a Planet, a World, and a Satellite included photographs of sculpted models of Lunar features, in the marked vertical exaggeration of the actual relief of the Moon.
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In 1877, Paul Dominique Philippoteaux and engraver Laplante illustrated Jules Verne's story Off on a Comet, including an imaginative view looking up at the rings of Saturn from the planet itself.
20th century
[edit]In 1918, Howard Russell Butler deliberately made use of the dynamic range of human vision in painting a total eclipse based on direct observation.[12]
In 1927, Scriven Bolten created lunar landscape images for the Illustrated London News using painted photos of plaster models.
In 1937, Lucien Rudaux painted many works for Sur Les Autres Mondes[13][14]
In 1944, Chesley Bonestell's paintings of Saturn seen from its different moons appeared in Life magazine, introducing astronomical art to a wide American audience. Books featuring Bonestell's art include The Conquest Of Space (1949), The Exploration Of Mars (1956), and Life's The World We Live In (1955).
The second Hayden Planetarium Symposium on Space Travel, held in New York in October 1952, resulted in a series of widely read space flight articles in Colliers magazine, illustrated by Bonestell and others.
In 1963, Ludek Pesek's paintings filled the large volumes The Moon And the Planets, and the 1968 volume Our Planet Earth-From The Beginning.
The 1980 Cosmos PBS television show and book used the work of many space artists. Host Carl Sagan used such art in several of his books.
The 21st century expanded to sending art into space. See more below.
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Giovanni di Paolo, The Creation and the Expulsion from the Paradise (ca. 1438–44) Tempera & gold on wood (46.5 x 52 cm ) Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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Albrecht Altdorfer, Schlacht bei Issus, Alte Pinakothek
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Galileo's sketches of the moon.
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Howard Russell Butler. Eclipse.
Art in space
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First art created in space
[edit]The first active artist in space was Alexei Leonov, who produced the first drawing in space onboard Voskhod 2 in 1965, depicting an orbital sunrise.[15]
First original oil paintings flown in outer space
[edit]An art conservation experiment from Vertical Horizons,[16] founded by Howard Wishnow and Ellery Kurtz, was flown aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia STS-61-C on January 12, 1986. Four original oil paintings by American artist Ellery Kurtz were flown in one of NASA's GetAway Special (G.A.S.) containers mounted to a bridge in the shuttle cargo bay. These original works of art are the first oil paintings to enter Earth's orbit. This NASA GAS canister, designated G-481, was the 46th such canister flown aboard a Space Shuttle. The Space Shuttle Columbia orbited the Earth 98 times during its mission duration of 6 days, 2 hours, 3 minutes, and 51 seconds. Columbia was launched from Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral, Florida, on January 12, 1986, and landed at the Kennedy Space Center on January 18, 1986.
Zero-g space art
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Small art objects have been carried on several Apollo missions, such as gold emblems and a small Fallen Astronaut figurine that was left on the Moon during the 1971 Apollo 15 mission. Visual observations have been recorded in drawings and commentary by earlier cosmonauts and astronauts of difficult-to-photograph phenomena such as the airglow, twilight colors, and outer details of the solar corona. An able and observant artist can record aspects of their surroundings beyond the design limitations of any particular camera system.
Another work, later brought to Earth orbit sometime in the mid-80s, was a study of the golden sunlight on a Soviet space station by Russian artist Andrei Sokolov, carried aboard the Soviet Mir space station starting with modules in February 1986. In 1984, Joseph McShane and Lowry Burgess had their conceptual artwork flown aboard the Space Shuttle utilizing NASA's 'Get Away Special' program.[17] The first sculpture specifically designed for human habitat in orbit was Arthur Woods' Cosmic Dancer[18][19] which was sent to the Mir station in 1993. In 1995, Arthur Woods organized Ars ad Astra, the first art exhibition in Earth orbit.[20] consisting of 20 original artworks from 20 artists and an electronic archive also took place on the Mir space station as part of ESA's EUROMIR'95 mission. In 1998, Frank Pietronigro flew Research Project Number 33: Investigating the Creative Process in a Micro-gravity Environment, where the artist drew, created 'drift paintings' and danced in micro-gravity space. In 2006, the artist returned to micro-gravity flight to create three new works, one in collaboration with Lowry Burgess, Moments in the Infinite Absolute, Flags in Space!, and a new form of micro-gravity mobile.
The Slovenian theater director Dragan Živadinov staged a performance called Noordung Zero Gravity Biomechanical during a parabolic flight organized through the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center facility in Star City in 1999. The UK arts group The Arts Catalyst, with the MIR consortium (Arts Catalyst, Projekt Atol, V2 Organisation, Leonardo-Olats), organized a series of parabolic 'zero gravity' flights for artistic and cultural experimentation with the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre, as well as with the European Space Agency, between 2000 and 2004, including Investigations in Microgravity,[21] MIR Flight 001,[22] and MIR Campaign 2003.[23][24][25][26] Artists who participated in these flights and visits to Russia and ESA have included the Otolith Group, shortlisted in 2011 for the Turner Prize, Stefan Gec, Ansuman Biswas and Jem Finer, Kitsou Dubois, Yuri Leiderman, and Marcel.li Antunez Roca.
Entrepreneur and astronaut Richard Garriott visited the International Space Station, via the Soyuz TMA-13 on October 12, 2008, where he displayed an art exhibition, Celestial Matters, during his 12 days in orbit. Celestial Matters included works by ten American artists as well as work Garriott created himself while in orbit, honoring his heritage in art and science. The art was later exhibited at the Charles Bank Gallery in New York City in October 2011.[27] Garriott also exhibited Astrogeneris Mementos, two small works, somewhat reminiscent of memento mori or hairwork, containing locks of hair from Richard Garriott and Owen Garriott sealed in chambers by Steve Brudniak, the first assemblage sculptures exhibited in outer space.[28][29][30]
The Mexican artist and musician Nahum directed the art and science project Matters of Gravity (La Gravedad de los Asuntos in Spanish), a project reflecting on gravity in its absence. The first mission consisting only of Latin American artists was executed in a zero-gravity flight at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in 2014. The participating artists include Tania Candiani, Ale de la Puente, Ivan Puig, Arcángelo Constantini, Fabiola Torres-Alzaga, Gilberto Esparza, Juan Jose Diaz Infante, Nahum, and Marcela Armas. The project included the participation of Mexican scientist Miguel Alcubierre and curators Rob La Frenais and Kerry Anne Doyle.
Performance art has also occurred in space, as with Chris Hadfield's 2013, edited performance of David Bowie's 1969 song "Space Oddity."[31]
Sojourner 2020 project onboard the International Space Station
[edit]In the Sojourner 2020 project from MIT, the Space Exploration Initiative took nine selected artists to develop art projects on board the International Space Station. Sojourner 2020 was a 1.5U size device (100mm x 100mm x 152.4mm) that was launched into low Earth orbit between March 7 and April 7 during the COVID-19 pandemic. It featured a three-layer telescoping structure that simulated three different "gravities": zero gravity, lunar gravity, and Martian gravity. Each layer of the structure rotated independently. The top layer remained still in weightlessness, while the middle and bottom layers spun at different speeds to produce centripetal accelerations that mimicked lunar gravity and Martian gravity, respectively. Each layer carried six pockets that held the projects. Each pocket was a container with a diameter of 10 mm and a depth of 12 mm. The artist proposed and accomplished artworks in a variety of different mediums, including carved stone sculptures by Erin Genia, liquid pigment experiments by Andrea Ling and Levi Cai, sculptures made of transgender hormone replacement medicines by Adriana Knouf, and living organisms, like marine diatoms of the genus Phaeodactylum Tricornutum, by Luis Guzmán.[32][citation needed]
The nine artist groups selected onboard Sojourner 2020 were:
![Moon Gallery viewed from the ISS Cupola](http://up.wiki.x.io/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a6/Moon_Gallery_onboard_the_ISS.jpg/452px-Moon_Gallery_onboard_the_ISS.jpg)
· Luis Bernardo Guzmán - bio architectures (Cosmo biology) - Chile
· Xin Liu, Lucia Monge - Unearthing the Futures - China and Peru
· Levi Cai & Andrea Ling - Abiogenetic Triptych - USA, Canada
· Kat Kohl - Memory Chain: A Pas de Deux of Artifact - USA
· Henry Tan - Pearl of Lunar - Thai
· Janet Biggs - Finding Equilibrium - USA
· Masahito Ono - Nothing, Something, Everything - Japan
· Adriana Knouf - TX-1 - USA
· Erin Genia - Canupa Inyan: Falling Star Woman - American Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate[33][citation needed]
DNA Time Capsule Artwork in Space
[edit]In 2024, Amy Karle (USA) created Echoes From the Valley of Existence, an interactive art installation on the future of human legacy in the context of digital, biological, and quantum technologies. The artwork captured participants' images, biometrics, and contributions of messages and DNA, which were preserved in a polymer and sent to the moon as part of a time capsule on Firefly Aerospace Blue Ghost lunar lander carried by SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Another copy will be aboard Astrolab’s lunar rover, set to be launched on SpaceX’s Starship rocket in 2026.[34][35]
Artworks launched into outer space
[edit]- The Golden Record: Greetings and Sounds of the Earth
- The Contour of Presence by Nahum[36]
- Orbital Reflector by Trevor Paglen
- Enoch by Tavares Strachan[36]
- Moon Gallery by the Moon Gallery Foundation[37]
- Echoes From the Valley of Existence by Amy Karle[34]
Humans have engaged in many cultural activities in space, particularly on space stations, recontextualizing terrestrial culture and art.[38]
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See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ "NASA Art Program". NASA: The Art of Air and Space. 2016-08-04.
- ^ Schuetz, Melvin H. (1999). A Chesley Bonestell Space Art Chronology. Universal-Publishers. ISBN 978-1-58112-829-1.
- ^ Melvin H. Schuetz (1999). Chesley Bonestell Chronology.
- ^ "A Different Perspective – Remembering James Dean, Founder of the NASA Art Program - NASA". 2024-05-06. Retrieved 2024-06-25.
- ^ NASA.gov
- ^ "Apollo 8 View of Earth". Archived from the original on 2007-05-14. Retrieved 2007-04-16.
- ^ "Stewart Brand Interview. March 2, 2004". Archived from the original on 2007-05-03. Retrieved 2007-04-16.
- ^ 'Pillars Of Creation'
- ^ Planetary Nebula
- ^ Malina, Roger (1991). "In Defense of Space Art: The Role of the Artist in Space Exploration". Light Pollution, Radio Interference, and Space Debris. 17 (ASP Conference Series, IAU Colloquium 112): 145–152. Bibcode:1991ASPC...17..145M – via Astrophysics Data System.
- ^ "Smarthistory – Albrecht Altdorfer, The Battle of Issus". smarthistory.org. Retrieved 2024-08-24.
- ^ Lawrence, Jenny; Richard Milner (February 2000). "A Forgotten Cosmic Designer". Natural History. Retrieved 27 March 2012.
- ^ Miller, Ron (17 January 2012). "The first science artist to draw accurate pictures of Mars and the Moon". io9. Retrieved 2019-04-17.
- ^ "Authors : Rudaux, Lucien : SFE : Science Fiction Encyclopedia". www.sf-encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 2019-04-17.
- ^ Brown, Mark (31 August 2015). "First picture drawn in space to appear in cosmonauts show in London". the Guardian. Retrieved 26 August 2021.
- ^ "Home". verticalhorizons.biz.
- ^ "Art into Space" Archived 2011-07-17 at the Wayback Machine by Robert Horvitz, Whole Earth Review, fall 1985, pages 26-31.
- ^ "Cosmic Dancer: A space art project by Arthur Woods". outer-space-art-gallery.com. Retrieved 18 November 2014.
- ^ "Home". cosmicdancer.com.
- ^ "Home". arsadastra.com.
- ^ Investigations in Microgravity
- ^ MIR Flight 001
- ^ MIR Campaign 2003
- ^ "Ars Astronautica - AstroArtist Arthur Woods - Space Art Interventions".
- ^ "Art, Science and "the True Mistakes of metaphor"" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-07-24. Retrieved 2011-04-24.
- ^ HighBeam
- ^ Chow, Denise. 2011. Space Art Launching from NYC Gallery This Weekend. NBC News, Oct. 14, 2011, 11:48 AM CDT (Source: Space.com). Accessed June 15, 2024.
- ^ Gupta, Anjali (editor), 2013. The Science of Surrealism - Assemblage Sculpture of Steve Brudniak. Merrid Zone. Austin, Texas. 198 pp. (see pages 159-162) ISBN 978-0-615-75370-6
- ^ Brannon, Mike, 2018. Profile, Steve Burdniak: Psychedelic Surrrealism Texas Style. 71 Magazine, Jan/Feb 2018: 66-75 pp. (see page 71). Accessed June 15, 2024.
- ^ Challenger Center, Youtube: Richard Garriott Space Video Blog, 2009: Conservation of Momentum. (Brudniak’s Astrogeneris Mementos [two black squares framed in silver] can be seen at the top of the green bulletin board on the left). Accessed June 15, 2024.
- ^ Fleishman, Glenn (22 May 2013). "How does copyright work in space?". The Economist. Retrieved 29 May 2013.
- ^ Liu, Xin. "Sojourner 2020 | An international art payload to ISS". MIT Media Lab. MIT.
- ^ Liu, Xin. "Sojourner 2020 | An international art payload to ISS". MIT Media Lab.
- ^ a b Mori, Akihico (2024-06-23). "DNAを月へと打ち上げる!? アートが探求する、死後に「遺すもの」の可能性". WIRED.jp (in Japanese). Retrieved 2024-08-24.
- ^ Redação (2024-01-22). "Conheça a futurista que deseja enviar o DNA da humanidade para Lua". Forbes Brasil (in Brazilian Portuguese). Retrieved 2024-08-24.
- ^ a b "The artworks floating above the Earth". BBC. 14 December 2018. Retrieved 18 March 2021.
- ^ Robert Z. Pearlman (2022-02-21). "'Moon Gallery' prototype arrives at space station with 64 works of art". Space.com. Retrieved 2022-09-05.
- ^ Maldonado, Devon Van Houten (2018-12-14). "The artworks floating above the Earth". BBC Home. Retrieved 2024-03-28.
Further reading
[edit]- Space Art, Ron Miller, Starlog Magazine
- Visions of Space, David A. Hardy, Paper Tiger 1989
- Worlds Beyond: The Art of Chesley Bonestell, Ron Miller & Frederick C. Durant, III
- Star Struck: One Thousand Years of the art of Science and Astronomy, Ronald Brashear & Daniel Lewis, 2001 Univ. of Washington Press
- Futures: 50 Years in Space, David A. Hardy & Patrick Moore, AAPPL 2004
- Out of the Cradle: Exploring the Frontiers beyond Earth, William K. Hartmann, Ron Miller and Pamela Lee (Workman Publishing, 1984)
- Space Art: How to Draw and Paint Planets, Moons, and Landscapes of Alien Worlds, Michael Carroll, 2007 Watson Guptill/Random House
- The Impact of American and Russian Cosmism on the Representation of Space Exploration in 20th Century American and Soviet Space Art, Kornelia Boczkowska, Wydawnictwo Naukowe UAM, 2016