lies:

A Walk at Dusk (about 1830-35)

Caspar David Friedrich (German, 1774-1840)

I posted previously about this painting I saw at the Getty last weekend. As someone who loves the sight of a crescent moon, and still more a close conjunction between the moon and a bright planet, I really liked this painting, and the contrast Friedrich created between the beautiful event in the sky and the somber scene below.

Reading up on Friedrich since then, I found his story compelling. His mother died when he was 7, a sister died when he was 8, and then, when he was 13, his younger brother Johann broke through the ice on a frozen lake and drowned before his eyes. At 16 he began his formal training as an artist, and ended up becoming one of the leading painters of the German Romantic period, specializing in landscapes that placed diminished human figures in evocative natural settings.

There was both a figurative and a literal darkness to his work. He frequently experienced episodes that today would probably be diagnosed as major depression. Some lighter scenes and more use of color emerged after Friedrich, at the age of 42, married 25-year-old Caroline Bommer and started his own family. But as time passed his style fell out of favor and his reputation declined, until he and his paintings were viewed as little more than strange and melancholy curiosities. His later life was spent in poverty and obscurity, and his paintings increasingly featured a bent, aged figure: Friedrich himself, contemplating scenes where symbols of death, like the megalithic tomb shown in this painting, were prominent.

A Walk at Dusk does not have an exact date; the Getty placard lists it as “about 1830-35”, those being the last years in which Friedrich was able to work in oils. He suffered a debilitating stroke in 1835 and never fully recovered; during the last five years of his life he created few works, with most of those being smaller paintings and watercolors. My guess is that A Walk at Dusk, along with a number of other works dated 1830-35, went unsold during his lifetime, and only became of interest after his death, at which point Friedrich’s haphazard records made it impossible to fix the dates of the works more precisely.

The placard accompanying the painting at the Getty mentions the new moon, but doesn’t mention the planet alongside it. But I wondered: Would it be possible to figure out when Friedrich might have seen that conjunction? Conjunctions like that are relatively rare and distinctive events. With desktop planetarium software it’s easy to simulate the sky for any date and location, so earlier today I used a program called Stellarium to look at all the young moon/planetary conjunctions Friedrich might have seen while walking near Dresden at dusk during the years 1830 to 1835.

I think I may have found it. If Friedrich was depicting an actual sky he’d seen recently, rather than merely inventing a sky, or basing the painting on a sketch he’d made years before, then there’s really only one good candidate: The night of January 6, 1832, when an 11% illuminated moon hung low in the southwest with Jupiter a half-degree above and to the right.

I included enlargements of the painting and a screenshot from Stellarium above, so you can see how closely the painting matches the sky from that date. There were a half-dozen other conjunctions during those years, but nothing that comes close to having the moon and a bright planet in the right place at the right time. But the conjunction of January 6, 1832 is an almost perfect fit.

I really like this painting. I like thinking about the deeper themes Friedrich was exploring with it. But I also like the idea that because he believed in depicting the natural world faithfully, and because of our shared appreciation of close conjunctions, I may have been able to tell the precise evening when he saw that sky.

If you live on the US west coast and go outside right now you can see a pretty close match to the January 6, 1832 crescent moon/Jupiter conjunction that may have inspired Friedrich.

Reposted from https://lies.tumblr.com/post/675130389908586496.

of-two-lands:

44°42’14.2″S 169°03’03.1″E

instagram/oftwolands

www.oftwolands.com

Reposted from https://lies.tumblr.com/post/190038766381.

trulyvincent:

Charles Rollo Peters (1862 – 1928), “Croissant de lune”

Fun facts: celestial geometry being how it is, you can tell that this is a morning conjunction with a very old moon. It should be possible to date it, like I did for the young-moon evening conjunction in my favorite Friedrich painting, A Walk at Dusk.

Reposted from https://lies.tumblr.com/post/189311990841.

hansolocareer:

Melodrama /// Paintings

Reposted from http://ift.tt/2xiv6ZH.

catonhottinroof:

Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840)

Northern Sea in the Moonlight, between 1823 and 1824

Reposted from http://ift.tt/2eq9SPj.

morgan-phillips:

Mammoth Road Trip (3 of 3) – Morgan Phillips Photography

That’s Convict Lake in the first shot. There are metamorphic roof pendants visible in that mountain on the right side of the shot that are more than 450 million years old.

The photo reminds me of two things: Friedrich’s Wanderer above the Sea of Fog, and the winter day in 1990 when we were living in Mammoth and heard that three teens and four would-be rescuers had drowned after breaking through the ice on the lake.

It’s a beautiful place, especially in the colder months when no one is there. But it’s a sad place, too.

Reposted from http://ift.tt/1jdph5E.

drug-child:

Surprised my forest picture got this many notes 🌲🌲🌲

This forest is totally cosplaying a Caspar David Friedrich painting.

Reposted from http://ift.tt/M2CEXx.

quisestistequivenit:

Caspar David Friedrich
Mondaufgang am Meer
1822

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/44830513056.

masterpiecedaily:

Caspar David Friedrich

Graveyard Under Snow

1826

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/44754840877.

Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker talk about the Caspar David Friedrich painting I geeked out about the day, A Walk at Dusk. They mention the moon briefly, but spend more time on the symbolism of the ancient tomb and Friedrich’s depiction of man’s place in nature. Part of the Khan Academy project.

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/43989930241.

leadfromthefront:

I’m watching the season 3 finale of Downton Abbey and I just noticed that the Scotland estate they’re vacationing at has Caspar David Friedrich paintings on the wall. 

How swanky. 

Hm. I’ve been unable to find any actual Caspar David Friedrich paintings that match those. They certainly appear (to my untrained eye) to be his style. But maybe they’re actually a different artist? Anyone know?

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/43850864636.

opheliawithashotgun:

‘A Walk at Dusk’ by Caspar David Friedrich

Wow. Had to reblog this after checking out the tags for other posts about this painting. Someone lightened this a lot in Photoshop (or the equivalent). It really changes the mood. Compare this unaltered shot of the original at the Getty:

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/43633219350.

A Walk at Dusk (about 1830-35)

Caspar David Friedrich (German, 1774-1840)

I posted previously about this painting I saw at the Getty last weekend. As someone who loves the sight of a crescent moon, and still more a close conjunction with a bright planet, I really liked this scene, and the contrast Friedrich created between the beautiful event in the sky above and the somber scene depicted below.

Reading up on Friedrich since then, I found his story compelling. His mother died when he was seven, a sister died when he was eight, and then, when he was 13, his younger brother Johann broke through the ice on a frozen lake and drowned before his eyes. At 16 he began his formal training as an artist, and ended up becoming one of the leading painters of the German Romantic period, specializing in landscapes that placed diminished human figures in evocative natural settings.

There was both a figurative and a literal darkness to his work. He frequently experienced episodes that today would probably be diagnosed as major depression. Some lighter scenes and more use of color emerged after Friedrich, at the age of 42, married 25-year-old Caroline Bommer and started his own family. But as time passed his style fell out of favor and his reputation declined, until he and his paintings were viewed as little more than strange and melancholy curiosities. His later life was spent in poverty and obscurity, and his paintings increasingly featured a bent, aged figure: Friedrich himself, contemplating scenes where symbols of death, like the megalithic tomb shown in this painting, were prominent.

A Walk at Dusk does not have an exact date; the Getty placard lists it as “about 1830-35”, those being the last years in which Friedrich was able to work in oils. He suffered a debilitating stroke in 1835 and never fully recovered; during the last five years of his life he created few works, with most of those being smaller paintings and watercolors. My guess is that A Walk at Dusk, along with a number of other works dated 1830-35, went unsold during his lifetime, and only became of interest after his death, at which point Friedrich’s haphazard records made it impossible to fix the dates of the works more precisely.

The placard accompanying the painting at the Getty mentions the new moon, but doesn’t mention the planet alongside it. But as someone who loves planetary conjunctions I noticed it right away. And it made me wonder: Would it be possible to figure out when Friedrich might have seen that conjunction? With desktop planetarium software it’s easy to simulate the sky for any date and location, so earlier today I used a program called Stellarium to look at all the young moons Friedrich might have seen if he’d been walking near Dresden at dusk during the years 1830 to 1835.

I think I may have found it. If Friedrich was depicting an actual sky he’d seen recently, rather than merely inventing a sky, or basing the painting on a sketch he’d made years before, then there’s really only one good candidate: The night of January 6, 1832, when an 11% illuminated moon hung low in the southwest with Jupiter a half-degree above and to the right.

I included enlargements of the painting and a screenshot from Stellarium above, so you can see how closely the painting matches the sky from that date. There were a half-dozen other conjunctions during those years, but nothing that comes close to having the moon and a bright planet in the right position at the right time. But the conjunction of January 6, 1832 is an almost perfect match.

I really like this painting. I like thinking about the deeper themes Friedrich was communicating with it. But I also like the idea that because of his belief in the importance of depicting the beauty of the natural world faithfully, and because of our shared appreciation of the beauty of a close conjunction, I may have been able to tell the precise evening when he saw that sky.

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/43629983224.

dendroica:

ikenbot:

Jupiter and the Moon Have a Close Encounter in the Sky February 18, 2013

The movement of the Moon makes a fascinating study of celestial mechanics. Despite the light pollution it brings to the nighttime sky, we’re fortunate as a species to have a large solitary satellite to give us lessons in “Celestial Mechanics 101″

This weekend, we’ll get to follow that motion as the Moon crosses into the constellation Taurus for a near-pass of the planet Jupiter, and for a very few citizens of our fair world, occults it.

In astronomy, the term “occultation” simply means that one astronomical body passes in front of another. The term has its hoary roots in astronomy’s ancient past; just like the modern day science of chemistry sprung from the pseudo-science of alchemy, astronomy was once intertwined with the arcane practice of astrology, although the two have long since parted ways. When I use the term “occultation” around my non-space geek friends, (I do have a few!) I never fail to get a funny look, as if I just confirmed every wacky suspicion that they ever had about us backyard astronomers…

But those of us who follow lunar occultations never miss a chance to observe one. You’ll actually get to see the motion of the Moon as it moves against the background planet or star, covering it up abruptly. The Moon actually moves about 12° degrees across the sky per 24 hour period.

On the evening of Monday, February 18th, the 56% illuminated waxing gibbous Moon will occult Jupiter for Tasmania and southern Australia around 12:00 Universal Time (UT). Folks along the same longitude as Australia (i.e., eastern Asia) will see a close pass of the pair. For North America, we’ll see the Moon approach Jupiter and Aldebaran of February 17th (the night of the Virtual Star Party) and the Moon appear past the pair after dusk on the 18th.

I didn’t realize this was happening last night.

I love conjunctions (what the image above actually shows, when two celestial bodies are close together in the sky, as opposed to occultations, when one body actually passes in front of the other). (I love occultations, too. But I’m not talking about those now.)

Seeing this image in my dash reminded me of a painting I saw during my trip to the Getty last weekend. Here it is:

From the Getty placard:

A Walk at Dusk (About 1830-35)

Caspar David Friedrich (German, 1774-1840)

Oil on canvas

The most celebrated of the German Romantic painters, Friedrich possessed a deeply personal and introspective vision that attracted a wide following. Among the last canvases he completed before a debilitating stroke, A Walk at Dusk shows a single figure — perhaps the artist himself — contemplating a megalithic tomb. This symbol of death is counter-balanced by the waxing moon, which represented for Friedrich Christ’s promise of rebirth.

[me again]

The placard didn’t mention it, but you can see that Friedrich didn’t just paint the young crescent moon; he also painted a bright planet (either Venus or Jupiter) in a close conjunction with it.

A crescent moon low in the sky is a beautiful thing by itself, but a planetary conjunction makes it even better. I want to write more about this painting, but I’ll save it for another post. 

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/43577300097.