"One Small Step for Man"
A friend of ours recently brought to our attention an amazing exhibition that was held last Spring and Summer at the Wallraf-Richartz Museum in Cologne entitled Der Mond. Over 130 paintings, drawings, prints and photographs were exhibited, spanning 500 years of human personification of the moon through art and science.
It is particularly interesting to us because our own painting of the moon (Mond, by Julius Grimm) was created by a scientific photographer that, after having produced countless lunar maps, decided to paint this extraordinary natural satellite with a blend of art and science.
The exhibition features a second painting of the moon by Grimm, a copy twice the size of our original, executed 11 years later and now hanging in Tübingen University Museum.
We think it can be best summed up by Apollo 13 star, Tom Hanks, who subsequently wrote/directed/produced/narrated the miniseries From the Earth to the Moon,: "That going to the moon was not just a technological endeavor but an artistic one, like Michaelangelo's frescoes on the Sistine chapel ceiling."
(Photos: Mond, Julius Grimm, Carlton Hobbs LLC; Apollo 11 Moonwalk; The Sheepfold, Moonlight, Jean-Francois Millet)
