Views of Space

         It’s been only recently in the span of history that humans have actually known what things look like in space - but we’ve been trying to imagine since the dawn of humanity.  Here is a little collection in which artists have depicted space in various interesting ways.

        In 1936 Clara MacGowan (USA, 1895-1983) made this relief block print of “Spacial Orbits.”  This one gives me a “music of the spheres” feeling, with its swooping, twirling planets and stars dancing together.  The carving is very simple, with bold shapes and lines, which gives it a look of

child-like joy.

        The second illustration, by W.B. MacDougall in 1896, is probably not a relief print, but it could easily be, with its white lines on black background.  This one illustrates Night, and while it shows the night sky as seen from Earth in a fairly straightforward way, the waving, gliding figures below the stars offer a sense of magic and mystery.  Since I can’t read the whole poem that this illustrates, I don’t know whether these glowing figures are people, or personified stars, or what, but I like the way they, too, like MacGowan’s orbits, seem to circle through the heavens in a celestial dance.

        I give you this third view of space because it was intended to be scientific, and yet ends up seeming strange and magical.  The assumption that the clouds of Earth’s sky would extend through the entirety of space is something that we now know to be false, but was not an unreasonable assumption in 1898, when this wood engraving was made to illustrate a geography textbook.  To me now, looking at Earth floating among all those puffy clouds makes it seem like some sort of magical miniature, as if you could almost reach out and pick it up.  I do like the sense of light and airiness the engraver has captured.

        Finally, here’s a piece by Werner Drewes (Germany/USA, 1899-1985) that’s gone in another direction, quite abstract.  Entitled “Looking Into Space,” it’s so abstract that I don’t know exactly where the viewer is supposed to be, or exactly what this view is.  However, I like to imagine it as the view if you opened the door and looked out on an alien planet, with a bare landscape, and strange huge moons in the sky.  What do you think?

        By the way, for more (non-fantasy) block prints of celestial phenomena, check out these past posts:

Observing the Moon

From the Stars

New Horizons

[Pictures: Spacial Orbits, relief print by Clara MacGowan, 1936 (Image from Art Institute Chicago);

The night that changes not, illustration by W.B. MacDougall from Songs of Love and Death by Margaret Armour, 1896 (Image from British Library Flickr);

The Earth in Space, wood engraving from Chambers’s Alternative Geography Readers, 1898 (Image from British Library Flickr);

Looking Into Space, wood block print by Werner Drewes, 1934 (Image from Drewes Fine Art).]