Moonshadows

July 23 2009, 9:51am

This remarkable depiction of the surface of the full moon in oil is the work of Julius Grimm (1842-1906), scientific photographer and Hofphotograph (court photographer) to the Baden court, whose greatest contribution to science and photography was in the field of astronomy and more specifically selenography (the study of the moon and its surface). The painting of the moon was presented to Grand Duke Friedrich I von Baden in 1888. Grimm’s 1888 painting, which has a highly textured surface and depicts shadows cast on the surface of the moon by the moon’s own craters, represents the moon in an extraordinary way that can never be seen in reality. Grimm’s representation features an arrow to the left of the moon, which indicates the direction of illumination he adopted. For Grimm, the issue of lighting the painting was critical and in a letter to the court he revealed that the arrow also indicated the direction from which his work should be illuminated.