Painting: the faces of the moon

From prehistory to the late Renaissance

Once the sun goes to sleep, returning every night to the same bed, he feels the absence of the woman he will never meet, the moon, who, waking up in her place, leaves, besides the messy sheets, a strong absence. Seen from the human perspective, on the other hand, the moon is that beautiful, pale, melancholy maiden we can observe, probably without even her being able to perceive our existence, so large is the universe in comparison. 

Before beginning the story of the history of art, it is necessary to summarize how specific symbolic meanings or even powers are associated with this satellite, now almost from time immemorial, which have identified her as the mysterious one responsible for the tides, cyclical changes, as well as the emotions, feelings and instincts of the individual, especially the female. All these responsibilities that have been attributed to the moon find further development in the fantasies brought forth by the narrative of the figurative arts, which, in this specific case, will take place exclusively in the Italian art-historical narrative. 

Before we delve into this specific subject, however, it will be curious to quickly present the general impact, which the satellite has had in creative manifestations, found since the earliest civilizations, that is, when man first raised his eyes to the sky, bringing back that same vision in his beliefs and representations, so much so that one of the earliest examples of the moon in art is the Lebombo bone, a small portable object about 35,000 years old. Although in this case we are, in fact, somewhere between art and representations of the moon, our narrative can proceed as far back as 3600 years ago, the time when the first, proper, image of the moon was made, taking shape in the famous Nebra Celestial Disk: a flat bronze circle decorated with circular, crescent-shaped gold inserts, which may have been used for astronomical observations. 

Later, regarding the Greek period, it is known how in this context the moon was personified in the depiction of the deity Selene, a character famous for wearing, precisely, a small crescent or lunar disk in her hair. While in the ancient Roman Empire such a tradition was carried on, with the advent of Christianity things changed, so much so that the moon found wide popularity in depictions of the crucifixion, where it was placed, both to keep faith with the biblical account of darkness and to symbolize God's cosmic wrath over the death of his only son. 

In addition, such presence could also allude to the Synagogue, which, along with the Church (which takes the form of the sun), attends the aforementioned dramatic event to mourn the death of Christ. During the Renaissance, however, such beliefs were also joined by a fair amount of naturalistic interest, so much so that artists such as Jan van Eyck observed the moon with the tools at their disposal in order to represent it as faithfully as possible. Now the narrative stops, because it will be the art of Italian artists from the late Renaissance onward that will explain to us, concretely, the evolution of the lunar figurative narrative...

TO BE IN THE MOON 02/20 (2021)Photography by Bettina Dupont.

COSMIC LUNA (2022)Painting by Kesa Graffiti

Painting: the Italian faces of the moon

When the moon is seen from the Bel Paese, that is, when one of its many faces speaks Italian, artists such as Cigoli, Guercino, Creti, Canaletto, Fergola and Licini have depicted it, creating a historical artistic narrative from the seventeenth century to the twentieth century, embodied in the following masterpieces: The Immaculate Conception (1612), Endymion with the Cannochial (1647), Astronomical Observations (1711), The Eve of Santa Marta (1760), Nocturne on Capri (1843) and Amalassunta (1949). By describing three of them, in order to briefly summarize this wide historical period, I will discuss the works of Cigoli, Canaletto and Licini, starting with the first masterpiece mentioned above, where a moon takes shape that is known to have taken on the features of how Galileo Galiei had described it in his Sidereus nuncius, or that early treatise, in which the astronomer reported his observations made with a telescope. 

In fact, Cigoli, instead of depicting the Virgin intent on resting her foot on a perfect crescent moon, and thus in keeping with the tradition of the time, chose to show the more realistic irregularities and craters of the latter, so much so that Pope Paul V decided not to venture with the inscriptions on the dome of the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore (Rome), where the masterpiece is located, preferring not to show explicit references to the theme of the Immaculate Conception.

After this anecdote, let us quickly move on to Canaletto, a master whose production turns out to be quite rich in moonlit nocturnes, as he loved to capture his city at evening festivals, such as, in the specific case of the painting La vigilia di Santa Marta, the celebration of the same name, aimed at honoring the patron saint of one of the quarters of the Serenissima. Precisely on such an occasion, as the masterpiece renders so well, Venetians used to enjoy the baglories of the full moon, capable of brightening both their profiles and the gasps of the sea. Finally, regarding Licini's Amalassunta, the painter himself, addressing art critic Giuseppe Marchiori in 1950, on the occasion of the exhibition of the masterpiece in question at the Venice Biennale, revealed the identity of the subject depicted: "But, if I should miss it and some curious soul should turn precisely to you, art critic without blemish or fear, to know who this mysterious 'Amalassunta' is of whom so much is still not spoken, answer in my name, without a shadow of a doubt, smiling, that Amalassunta is our beautiful Moon, guaranteed silver for eternity, personified in a few words, the friend of every slightly weary heart."

In this context, it is curious to reveal how the Italian master baptized his astral icon with the appellation of Amamlasunta, to evoke the Marian name of Assumption, which was contaminated with that of the Ostrogothic queen Amalasunta, giving rise to a play on words that, poised between pagan and Christological metaphors, generated an ambivalent reading of the satellite in question, which became, among other things, an ambiguous figure in eternal transition, always suspended between its human and lunar identity. We have now come to the contemporary, which will instead be told through the point of view of three Artmajeur artists...

UNDER THE RED MOON. (2021)Photography by Refat Mamutov

WAITING FOR THE RED MOON (2018)Photography by Alessandra Favetto

MOON NIGHT (2023)Painting by Nga Tran

MOON NIGHT (2023) by Nga Tran 

Night suddenly falls, catching a group of horses off guard as they find themselves in the darkness, illuminated only by the round face of a full moon, which dominates the upper extremity of the painting, near the right edge of the canvas. In this dark context, it's challenging to discern the exact number of horses in question, which could be around nine or ten, as their bodies overlap and blend into the shadows. Those closest appear brown, while those in the distance tend toward blue, perhaps because they are increasingly immersed in the nuances of the surrounding sky. It's important to note that what has just been described is a work created through the woodcut technique, which, referring to Nga Tran's words, was executed with a rich design and a remarkable ability to alter the composition, actually depicting a pair of horses, likely multiplied by their own actions. The whole piece is designed to create a romantic atmosphere, where, under the moon's glow, the sweet interaction between the animals is clearly evident, conveyed through the use of strongly contrasting colors, suitable for making art a means of emotional expression known to us all. Lastly, speaking of Nga Tran, their engraved painting was conceived to bring something new to the Vietnamese artistic tradition, which is now also innovatively influenced by Western style, in order to reveal how the visual arts, in any case, find their place in the simplest, most instinctive, and authentic aspects of life.

LUNAR DREAM (2023)Painting by Marta Zawadzka