Artwork Via Symbols: The Moon

The moon doesn’t simply transfer our seas, and mark time by its phases, however is an ever-evolving image within the visible arts that has collected a broad web of meanings. From rebirth to insanity, and introspection to immortality, our fascination with the moon is imbued with the reassurance that it’ll be in our sky so long as we’re. The Artwork Via Symbols sequence explores the interpretation of symbols all through artwork historical past – be they cultural, spiritual, folkloric, or private. Every article analyses a sequence of artworks, earlier than detailing an art-making tutorial impressed by the image so that you can strive.

Artwork Via Symbols: The Moon

Decoding the Moon

The Face of the Moon, 1797
John Russell RA
Pastel on paper, 45.4 x 60.7 cm | 17.9 x 23.9 in
Birmingham Museums

The moon has hung vivid on our collective visible consciousness all through historical past. Maybe we’re so enchanted by it as a result of it’s our closest planetary neighbour in an countless universe, or that its cycles plainly mark the passage of time. The moon has all the time been related most broadly with eternity, showing to each dwelling being for so long as our planet has existed and can stay. Our tides roll due to its fixed tugging, and folklore and mythology each recommend the total moon pulls individuals into insanity or beastly transformation. There’s additionally a romance to wishing upon the moon, gazing at it with craving for one more place. Because it displays the sunshine of the solar, it’s additionally apt that so many artworks use the moon as a visible system for internal reflection or meditation. The next examples span the world, from Egypt to India, Italy, Germany, and Japan.

The Moon In Artwork Historical past

Journey and Renewal

The moon was important to the passage of time in Historical Egypt, since they initially labored from a lunar calendar. It’s no shock that lots of their Gods have been depicted with the moon, with every carrying completely different symbolic associations. Most individuals are accustomed to Ra, the Solar God of Historical Egypt, who pulled the Solar throughout the sky in his chariot, however you might not have come throughout Khonsu, which means ‘traveller’. He’s depicted in a wide range of types in artwork, generally as a younger man or with the pinnacle of a falcon. He wears the moon as his crown, preserving travellers secure at evening by lighting the way in which. On this interpretation, the moon is a guiding power, providing security to those that look to it.

One other God related to the moon is Osiris-lah, who’s a type of Osiris straight associated to the moon. Osiris himself is the God of the Underworld, who was resurrected from the lifeless by his spouse, Isis. Rebirth aligns with the moon, because it additionally progresses from full to crescent each month. In relation to this story, the moon is a tangible image of renewal and regeneration.

Left: Khonsu Pendant, ca. 1295-1070 BC
New Kingdom, Ramesside
Gold pendant, 3.8 x 1.5 x 0.6 cm | 1.5 x 0.6 x 0.2 in
The Metropolitan Museum of Artwork

Proper: Osiris-lah, 664-30 BC
Late Interval – Ptolemaic Interval
Cupreous steel, 13 x 3.5 x 2.7 cm | 5.1 x 1.4 x 1.1 in
The Metropolitan Museum of Artwork

Meditation

A ragamala is a sequence of work that depict a variety of musical melodies, individually referred to as ‘ragas’. The musical modes are additionally typically linked to the seasons and completely different occasions of day, right here being the evening sky. On this stunning work by Ruknuddin, we see an ascetic (an individual who practices excessive self-discipline by rejecting indulgences and possessions to pursue their spirituality) listening to a younger man taking part in the rudra veena at evening beneath a lush tree. One other textual content says that the determine on the left is “an ascetic, whose thoughts is drowned in meditation on Shiva… topped by the white moon.”

Shiva is without doubt one of the foremost deities of Hinduism, conveying to us that the moon on this context is a logo of immortality, and a font for thought on the self and the divine. Compositionally, the ascetic’s head is bowed in the direction of the moon, which we will join in a triangle to the rudra veena participant. This dynamic diagonal triangle is balanced by the vertical help of the tree, giving the portray a peaceable impact. That is enhanced by the muted palette and delicate gradient within the sky past.

Ragini: Folio from a ragamala sequence, ca. 1690-95
Ruknuddin
Watercolour and ink on paper, 25.7 x 18.4 cm | 10.2 x 7.3 in

The Metropolitan Museum of Artwork

Insanity and Transformation

The moon has been broadly related to insanity because the Roman interval. The title of the goddess who was the divine embodiment of the moon, Luna (Latin for moon), is the direct supply of the outdated phrase ‘lunatic’. Even earlier than this level, the Greek thinker Aristotle wrote a principle contemplating that the excessive water content material of the mind might make it sufferer to the cycles of the moon, bringing round insanity like a tide.

Earlier than the Roman goddess Luna, the Greek goddess of the moon was Selene. She was so in love with the mortal Endymion that she granted him everlasting youth, at the price of him being without end asleep. There’s a insanity to this story, in that though he was granted everlasting life, his personal life ended to be admired for eternity. The story was highly regarded for funerary decorations due to the implied loss of life of the character. On this sarcophagus, we see the parable of Endymion and Selene carved in marble, the place she arrives in her chariot to go to him in his everlasting sleep. The swathe of material that swirls round her from her clenched fist and tensed arms types a crescent moon form, conveying a way of her energy.

Marble Sarcophagus with the Fable of Endymion, mid-2nd Century CE
Roman
Carved marble, 48.9 x 198.8 x 53.3 cm | 19.3 x 78.3 x 21 in
The Metropolitan Museum of Artwork

Introspection

Caspar David Friedrich imbued his work of the pure world with tangible emotion. He perceived the world round us as filled with highly effective forces that individuals have been futile to intervene with. In his delicate work Two Males Considering the Moon, we’re positioned inside a thicket of gloomy forest, gazing up towards two males admiring the view of the nice and cozy moon collectively. It’s believed that the figures are Friedrich himself, alongside one other artist that he mentored, referred to as August Heinrich.

Compositionally, the route of our gaze by the work is attention-grabbing because the viewer is positioned beneath the lads, who’re additionally trying down on the moon. This provides us the sense that we aren’t certain what’s over the hill, apart from the knowledge of the moon – and with it, time passing. On this sense, the work could be interpreted as a contemplation on the afterlife, or introspection on a life nearing completion, with out understanding what comes subsequent. This portray is the third model of the identical picture by Friedrich: the primary was made when Heinrich was nonetheless alive, and the opposite two past his loss of life. On this paintings, the moon is imbued with introspective thought on themes as broad as remembrance, reassurance, and thriller.

Two Males Considering the Moon, ca.1825-30
Caspar David Friedrich
Oil on Canvas, 34.9 x 43.8 cm | 13.7 x 17.3 in
The Metropolitan Museum of Artwork

The Moon Humanised

The imaginative and prescient of Saint John in Revelations 12 describes the ‘Lady of the Apocalypse’, as “a lady clothed within the solar, and the moon was beneath her ft”. This passage impressed a bunch of inventive interpretations of the Madonna standing on prime of the moon within the Gothic interval, and even grew to become so standard in Fifteenth-century Germany that pre-existing statues have been altered to incorporate the moon.

Albrecht Dürer made numerous variations of this picture in print all through his profession. And the 2 I’ve chosen listed here are my favourites due to the parts of the moon’s ‘face’ that we see beneath her trailing gown. In these artworks, the moon is humanised as sentient and obedient, holding steadily beneath her determine. Her place over the flipped moon alerts a victory over the cycles of the earth, telling us that divinity goes past the passages of time that the moon represents for us on earth. On this work, the moon is now not a God itself or a part of the Heavens, however placed on the identical stage as the remainder of us on Earth, by being humanised.

Left: The Virgin and Little one on a Crescent with a Starry Crown, 1508
Albrecht Dürer
Engraving on laid paper, 11.9 x 7.8 cm | 4.7 x 3.1 in
Nationwide Gallery of Artwork

Proper: The Virgin on the Crescent, c. 1498 -1499
Albrecht Dürer
Engraving on laid paper, 10.8 x 7.7 cm | 4.3 x 3.1 in
Nationwide Gallery of Artwork

Eternity and Significance

One Hundred Facets of the Moon is a sequence of woodblock prints created by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, made between 1885 and 1892. The scenes cycle their method by the phases of the moon, that includes characters from poetry, historical past, folklore, theatre, and standard Chinese language and Japanese literature – all seen by moonlight.

Yoshitoshi made these works after experiencing a time of change in Japanese society, seeing the transition from feudal rule to authorities when he was 26 years outdated. This opened Japan as much as the influences of the Western world, forcing society to adapt. Yoshitoshi made this sequence in the direction of the top of his life to immortalise the characters and tales that he noticed as essential to protect for the longer term, stemming from the anxiousness of societal change. They have been exceptionally standard, and folks would queue as much as purchase every re-creation, sharing his similar hopes and fears.

In these scenes, the moon bears witness to every cultural second, imbuing them additional with the want for them to be thought of into eternity just like the moon itself.

Left: Moon and Smoke from One Hundred Facets of the Moon, 1886
Tsukioka Yoshitoshi
Color woodblock print, 37.5 x 25.4 cm | 14.8 x 10 in
Artwork Institute Chicago

Proper: A Cauldron on a Moonlit Night time from One Hundred Facets of the Moon, 1886
Tsukioka Yoshitoshi
Color woodblock print, 37.5 x 25.4 cm | 14.8 x 10 in
Artwork Institute Chicago

The Moon – Artwork Immediate

I used to be impressed by the peace imbued within the portray by Ruknuddin, paired with the graphic strains and personification of the moon in Dürer’s prints. For this artwork immediate we’ll give the moon a face, and a panorama for it to ponder over.

For this artwork immediate you’ll want:

A sheet from an Arnhem 1618 Paper Pad

A 2H graphite pencil

Sennelier Indian Ink

William Mitchell Calligraphy Joseph Gillott Drawing Set

Schmincke Aqua Bronze Powder in Silver

To start my work, I flippantly sketched the location of the moon, a tree, and the panorama beneath them with a 2H graphite pencil. Utilizing a lightweight pencil makes it simpler to fully erase later.

Subsequent, I poured the Sennelier Indian Ink right into a small spherical ceramic palette. I started drawing with the nibs and pen holder from the Joseph Gillot Drawing Set, taking my time to dip the nib into the ink periodically with out overfilling it and danger making splotches.

I labored my method across the drawing, ranging from the moon itself, to the sunshine beams round it, all the way down to the bottom and tree, earlier than ending the sky.

I mixed completely different areas of hatching, cross-hatching, and stippling to fluctuate my mark-making, and supply textural differentiation between every space of the composition. To create thinner strains I swiped the pen sideways, and made thicker strains by drawing with it straight and urgent more durable.

As soon as I completed the ink drawing, I needed so as to add some metallic highlights to the drawing. The Schmincke AquaBronze powders are water-activated and have good pigmentation that may be utilized finely with a brush.

I tipped among the silver AquaBronze powder into one other spherical ceramic palette and combined it with water from a separate dish with my brush. This provides you rather more gradual management over the consistency of the paint than attempting to estimate how a lot water to pour into the powder.