The artists' moon in a scientific perspective

Marie Radbo

Chalmers University of Technology

Many artists have used the moon and its light when depicting nature. The reason was often to give their scenes an atmosphere of mystery and drama, but sometimes they also made an effort to incorporate the science of their time. We know of several examples where science influenced artists, for example Joseph Wright of Derby who was a member of the "Lunar Society" and Caspar David Friedrich and his lunar eclipse. Lodovico Cigolis, who was a friend of Galileo Galilei, was another painter who not only took advantage of the new science, but his paintings of the moon can also be seen as a contribution to the scientific debate. But as well as science was important to art, art was important to science; for example we can date paintings thanks to the moon depicted. With a closer look, the artists also seemed to understand a lot of science, and they made progresses which even was valuable for science, where Harald Sohlberg with his painting "Winternight in the mountains" is one example.