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Space

To Boldly Paint What No Man Has Painted Before 75

Posted by michael from the acrylic-or-oil-based dept.
David Mazzotta writes "It's not just Sci-Fi authors who have had influence on space technologies. Artist Chesley Bonestell produced beautiful space-art that inspiried people from Sagan to Heinlein."
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To Boldly Paint What No Man Has Painted Before More

To Boldly Paint What No Man Has Painted Before

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  • Inspirations (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 17, 2002 @05:28AM (#4088258)
    It's amazing to see how artists can portray our universe. While writers and directors often get the most exposure to the public, the vast universe has inspired equally impressive works from visual artists and musicians.

  • Can you buy these from somewhere? (Score:3)

    by jukal ( 523582 ) on Saturday August 17, 2002 @05:31AM (#4088261) Journal
    ...or paper copies atleast, I mean seriously, those are amazing!

  • some more links (Score:3, Informative)

    by pretzel_logic ( 576231 ) <andy...shook@@@gmail...com> on Saturday August 17, 2002 @05:34AM (#4088268)
    • Here is a link [bonestell.org] to Chesley Bonestells web site where you can find more art.
    • His Bio [bonestellgallery.com],
    • And some more art is here [bonestellgallery.com].
    • But this one [demon.co.uk] has a bunch of scans.
    • Other [black-cat-studios.com] space artist links.
    this stuff is so cool...

    • dead astronaut (Score:4, Interesting)

      by fantomas ( 94850 ) on Saturday August 17, 2002 @06:15AM (#4088319)

      this one [demon.co.uk] has a bunch of scans (pretzel_logic)


      Wow, interesting, the image of astronauts burying their dead comrade on Mars. Pretty contoversial stuff, it must have caused a real storm when that picture got published. Anybody know anything about that picture? Give the man his due for realism. Can anybody imagine NASA producing a series of artistic impressions these days including a burial scene?


      I suppose it follows in the great romantic tradition of the 'fallen hero' but respect to the man for telling the possible negative side of the story as well as the positive.



    • You can also buy limited editions [novaspace.com] of some of his work.

  • Is He The Guy Who... (Score:3, Funny)

    by tealover ( 187148 ) on Saturday August 17, 2002 @05:41AM (#4088279)
    did the fake backdrops for the staged Moon Landings?

    If so, this guy is good! Bravo, take a bow !!

  • That magazine was also publishing astronomical illustrations painted by a Britisher named Scriven Bolton...

    Oh dear me.

    • Re:Britisher? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by spinlocked ( 462072 )
      Yes, I think it's a word used in Nazi standard battlefield English. A dialect often found in hollywood war films, as in:

      "Hande Hoch! For you Britisher, ze vor is over."

  • This guy's art and why I hate being an artist. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by SeverianDragon ( 555306 ) <h2owarrior@hotmail.com> on Saturday August 17, 2002 @05:55AM (#4088300)
    I have seen this artist before, I've run across him numerous times on the covers of sci-fi novels and in sci-fi and sci-fa magazines. I think his work is just beautiful. His inspiration? Space and progress, best as I can understand it.

    Unfortunately, this sort of art wouldn't fly in the "serious" art world. Not only is it tied to "main-stream" books and publications on space, but also to the sub-culture of Science Fiction genre writing. Ironically enough, the college that I attend looks down upon any person who does Genre Fiction. But I digress too much.

    Favorite Rant: The Art World today, is confused. It is full of artists, critics, curators and gallery managers who scrabble after the false god of "Art Has A Message". Sure it does. But is the artist required to draw a sodding road map?!? I know my professors will want me to do so for my senior show.

    Like I said before. Love the work! It's beautiful, expansive (both physically and temporally), and (dare I say?!? [dare! dare!]) pure(?). Would that artists of his calibre were more accepted in both the main-stream as forward thinking and artists-for-everyone. And in the art world as the master-artists they are, if only the art world could drop the pretentious BS that they have swallowed with their chocolate-covered strawberries and red wine at every art opening.

  • Red Dwarf (Score:2, Funny)

    by SWroclawski ( 95770 )
    Am I the only one, when reading the topic of the story, thought of the intro scene of Red Dwarf with the astronaught (Lister?) painting the outside of the ship?
  • Art is a process where one combines mind and body, and internal and external experiences and then relates them into chosen formalities of art: line, shape, color, form, size, texture, content, etc. It is a non-verbal form of communication and expression, and both the art process and the art product contribute to the conversation which may transpire both within the creator himself as well as with others. An issue, feeling, or thought may be relayed more easily or with more truthfulness through the means of creating 2-D and 3-D art rather than through the art of conversation alone. Freud expressed the potential difficulties in verbal communication in terms of translating dream imagery into words: "I could draw it," a dreamer often says, "but I don't know how to say it"
  • I grew up on a steady diet of this man's art, and it was one of the seminal influences shaping my passion for astronomy, and space travel. How do you acknowledge somebody for shaping your dreams about what is possible in being human. The word awesome is sadly used to death, but it fully serves here. Anybody who dreams of visiting other worlds, seeing the vast reaches of the universe, and is over 40, got their first inspirations from this man.
  • wow. these were good. After stories of slowdown and RIAA and the bot and what not, comes chicken soup for the soul.
    I esp like the attention to detail. Most of the space art tends to be macro oriented, so you have classy supernovas and stuff like that, but it takes vision an ingenuity to plan reflections on solar panels!
    Esp commendable is saturn from TITAN, the lighting is great and the attention to shadows is real igneous. Hopefully our sci-fi movie ppl also take a vue adn start giving more attention to small details rather than grandoise.
  • Click here [bigpond.net.au] to visit a neat site that explores a "what if?" scenario. In other words, what would it have been like if some of the ideas in that article in Collier's that included Bonestell's art had actually been carried out? It's an interesting project, and follow the gallery link [bigpond.net.au] to view the trailer (in mpeg format). Kind of neat to see it brought to life this way.

  • And leave us not forget... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    ...that the producers of Star Trek: TNG named a ship after the guy, the Oberth-class science vessel USS Bonestell.

    Clearly, the best of all possible tributes. ;)

  • Great work (Score:2, Informative)

    by software_non_olet ( 567318 )
    You may want to have a look at his own site [bonestell.org] too.
  • Called Infinite Worlds; a very large "coffee table" book filled with scfi art. Cannot recommend highly enough.
  • You want news for nerds? you want stuff that matters? You have GOT to subscribe to Invention and Technology. I've been reading it for about five years; it never fails to delight and intrigue me. Articles about fire alarms in the 1800s, or the connection between leaded gasoline and freon, or a 'train' of trucks large enough to stack jeeps on, or the airplane that carried parts of the space shuttle (giving the lie to the urban legend that the shuttle's SRBs are as wide as two horses' butts) or the invention of the first digital calculator or a description of the development of the controls for lithography on silicon chips or...I could go on and on. If you have any interest in technology and the history of technology, this is THE magazine to subscribe to.
  • Well, on most weekends, you can find this _amazing_ guy in downtown San Francisco, who paints sci-fi sceneries.

    He uses a few innovative techniques to create awesome astronomical scenes using spray paint, in under just about 3-5 minutes. It's really great to watch, but the paintings are a little costly, about $25-$35.

    The thing is, you can watch him paint it for you, and go on and buy it. If anybody's from in and around SFO, you can find him at Fisherman's Wharf, usually on Fri and Sat evenings. Neat stuff!
    • Also, near Giradelli (sp?) square is a gallery for the guy that does some of the star trek backgrounds. Uses high voltage to achieve some really cool effects. Good ol' Google.. His name is David Archer [davearcher.com]
  • For those who are interested, a CG movie is being made based on Bonestell's space art. It's called Man Conquers Space, and it's due out eventually... but you can find the home page and trailers on the web at http://users.bigpond.net.au/surfacesrendered/MCSHo mepage.html [bigpond.net.au].
  • ...may recall the scene at the end of Stranger in a Strange Land in which Jubal Harshaw is writing a screenplay for a film of Michael's life. It begins, "Zoom in on Mars, using stock or bonestelled shots..."

    I wondered for years what "bonestelled" meant, until I found out about Chesley Bonestell.

  • Paint THIS (Score:1, Troll)

    by lildogie ( 54998 )
    I'd like to see him paint a split infinitive!
  • There's an artist who did the same for dinosaurs. He painted in the early-to-mid part of last century, and did a lot of museum murals and such. Everyone from fantasy movie effects people (Harryhausen) to modern museum curators to paleantologists have been influenced by his take on dinosaurs, "cave men", and other topics that he worked on.

    The amazing thing is that he was nearly blind, and yet his paintings were more accurate than anyone had a right to be (we now know that some of his ideas were off, but suprisingly few, and much of his work remains in the territory of good guess, but we don't know).
  • As an amature/hobbyist space artist myself, I quite well remember my dad's copy of Conquest of Space. I would study it for hours.

    One thing that used to puzzle me about Bonestell's works was that some parts appeared hand-painted, and other parts looked like photographs of actual rocks and mountains. IOW, there seemed to be an inconsistency from portion to portion of a given work.

    I later found out that Bonestell used a combination of techniques. He used to build clay and wood models using his motion picture experience and materials, and photograph them to study and experiment with. These photographs often made it into parts of his space art.

    I remember trying to duplicate the realism of some of his works as a teenager, never satisfied with the results. It seems I was trying to do the impossible: compete with photographs of clay models.

    There is one Bonestell painting of the Great Wall (IIRC) on the moon. There is one cliff face there that is almost certainly a photograph in retrospect, and I would bust my butt trying to reproduce that same photo-realistic look in color pencils, pastels, and acrylics; but could not. When I found out about the photos, I screamed in my head "No F*cken Wonder!" (it was late and I didn't want to wake anybody).

    BTW, some of my space art can be previewed at:

    http://geocities.com/astroviews/

  • This is a wonderful book. I only wish my company had been the one to publish it! FYI, on the subject of this book, Ron Miller has been nominated for a Hugo at this year's WorldCon. Good luck Ron!!!

    Plug: Earlier this year he was awarded a Book of the Year award for his fantasy novel (which my company does publish) BRONWYN: PALACES & PRISONS [timberwolfpress.com].

    - Patrick Seaman
    Timberwolf Press
  • When I saw his snow-on-the-rocks in _Saturn as Seen From Titan_ in the story, I immediately throught "Bryce rendering". :-)
  • After seeing the I&T article, I was suddenly struck as to where Disney got the inspriation for the original Tomorrowland. The Eisner version just doesn't cur it for me (plus they can't even get the new rides right - i.e. the "Rocket Rods").

    There have been a couple of references about the recently deceased Ward Kimball (had the pleasure of meeting him 10 years ago) helping with the Collier's series on space travel. It would seem that the flow went both ways.

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