Bonestell, ‘Exploring Copernicus’ (1967)

 


Bonestell painted a number of versions of this image, called ‘Exploring Copernicus’—in other versions the spacesuited figures are dressed in green or blue, although here they are red. It is a famous image, as accurate as Bonestell could make it, from his notional point-of-view looking down upon lunar crater Copernicus. But as with the previous post on this blog, I'm struck by the compositional boldness of this image. The tininess of the astronaut figures conveys the sense of scale, and enhances the sublimity of the perspective; but the division of the canvas into a slightly-more-than-half lower portion of textured white-grey, and weighty block of black vacuum above, gives the whole a powerful abstract Rothko-like force.


Three Rothko canvases at the Fondation Louis Vuitton, 2023


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