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You are here: Home / Art Column / Nothing Like the Sun: What Artists Make of the Moon

Nothing Like the Sun: What Artists Make of the Moon

Art Column by Emily Farranto

James Prapaithong “Looking Up at the Half Moon” Oil on canvas
James Prapaithong “Looking Up at the Half Moon” Oil on canvas

For a period of time when I was very young, the song “Arthur’s Theme” by Christopher Cross played on the radio at least once every hour. The lyrics, If you get caught between the moon and New York City, were a mystery I thought a lot about as a child, ten years old. How could a person be caught between New York, where that person was, and the moon, so many miles away? That space between the person and the moon was vast but connected by some intangible current, force, or thing. That tether between the person in the song and the moon is, in art terms, the gaze. Since there have been humans, they have gazed at the moon. The first known depiction of the moon in art is reported to be the 3,600-year old Nebra Sky Disk .The moon is many things:a calendar, the conductor of tides, a relay for enough light to navigate at night. Beyond its practical functions, the moon has maintained its ability to draw our attention, to hold our gaze, to inspire or reflect our desire, longing, and restlessness. Artists throughout time have been caught between where they are (who and what they are) and the moon.

Stacy Caldwell, Charcoal on Paper
Stacy Caldwell, Charcoal on Paper

A List of Questions About the Moon

1. What does the moon mean in a painting, drawing, or other work of art? 
2. Where do artists place the moon in a picture? 
3. Is there a dominant pictorial placement–left, right or centered–and what does it signify?
4. What does the moon mean to you?

Guimi You, “Next Door” Oil on linen
Guimi You, “Next Door” Oil on linen

A List of Facts and Thoughts About the Moon:

1. The word lunatic derives from the Latin word luna, meaning moon. 
2. Wolves don’t howl at the moon. But humans, probably projecting, have perpetuated this myth.
3. There is some connection, real or imagined (thus real) between the moon and loneliness, restlessness, and other strong feelings.
4. The moon shines borrowed light, light without heat.
5. The moon’s force is gravity.
6. All sighted humans everywhere have gazed at the moon.

David Dupuis, “Puget Sound Memory - Teenage Dreamer”
David Dupuis, “Puget Sound Memory – Teenage Dreamer”

Whenever the full moon is full, artists on Instagram post paintings, drawings, and photographs of it. During the last full moon, I began to collect screenshots and posted a message asking artists to DM me their pictures of the moon. Almost instantly, pictures of the moon started drifting into my account, kind of the way moonlight comes through a window. It was something beautiful, this quiet, digital spectacle of moons, coming through my screen from all over the world. 

Abdul-rahman Abdullah, Conte and Stain on Plywood
Abdul-rahman Abdullah, Conte and Stain on Plywood
Scott Murphy “Black Summer Moon” Oil on canvas
Nomi Lubin, “Night Sky, Mid July” Ink on paper
Boris Saccone, “Waldeinsmkeit” Coal, pastel, and oil on canvas
Renske, Untitled, Colored Pencil on Paper.
Rocío Olalla Villar, “North Latitude” Oil on linen
David Woodward, "Moonlight, Clouds, and Night" Digital photograph
Amy Crowe, “Moon” Acrylic on paper
Maree Hensey, “Moon Pool" Floating ink drawing
Andrej Dubravsky, “Full Moon Above Swamp in Devin” Acrylic on canvas
Lydia Kinney, “Moon” Acrylic on panel
Kathleen Cottell, Untitled, Monotype
Seth Becker. “Leaving the Party” Oil on Panel
Daniela Maria Gargiulo, “Moonrise Over Mermaid Lodge, Lansing, December 2020 (Holiday From Myself)” Painted paper collage on canvas board.
Hollis Ruggieri, Untitled, Oil on panel
Mark McCarthy, “High Moon” Oil on linen
Antone Könst, “Moon Rising from Assateague Island” Oil on canvas
Catrin Perih “Moonlight” Digital painting
Lee Jieun, “Night, Mountain, and Moon” Soluble oil on paper
Sally K. Smith, “Summer Moon” Oil on linen
Paul Vincent, “Ship by Moonlight” after Ivan Aivazovsky, Acrylic on stone
Patrick Dunford, “Evening Quarry” Oil on canvas
Andrew Pope, “Escape Route” India ink, walnut Ink, and acrylic ink on canvas
Aucke Paulusma, “Hide and Seek” Pen, ink and colored pencil on paper
Lara Cobden “Dissolving in the Dawn Sky” Oil and ink on gessoed panel
Nancy Diamond, Untitled, Watercolor and gouache on paper
Toby Rosenbloom, “Last Full Moon 2020” Acrylic, oil, and glow-in-the-dark paint on canvas
Travis MacDonald, “Midsummer Evening” Oil on linen on shaped stretcher
Nathaniel J. Moody, “A Hidden Place” Oil on canvas
Anika Mariam Ahmed “Purple Moon” Oil on linen
Sebastián Espejo, “Full Moon Landscape” Oil on canvas
Vanessa Rowe, “Night of the Lunar Eclipse” Water soluble wax pastels
Neda Nikolic, Untitled, Acrylic on cardboard
Loraine Stephenson, “Yellow Moonrise” Oil on archival panel
Ken Schuck, “Moon” Digital painting
Alejandro Sinutra Castro, “Luna” Oil on canvas
Claudia Keep, “Pink Moon” Oil on hardboard
Steve Burnham, Untitled, Digital photograph
Nick McPhail, “Moon II” Oil on canvas
Jack Bishop, “Cumberland Blues” Oil and acrylic on canvas
Barry McGlashan “Pale Moon” Oil on Canvas
Raymie Iadevaia, “Strawberry Moon” Oil on canvas
Katarina Janečková Walshe, “Night Travelers” Acrylic on Canvas
Sam Patnoe, “Bayfield Moonrise” Oil on paper
Paul Wessenberg, “Templin Lock” Oil and oilskins on partial primed linen
Colleen Blackard, “The View of Ballinskelligs Bay” Monotype on paper

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Call for Submissions

Call for submissions for issue #51, as well as our poetry and micro essay contests. Learn more and submit your work here.

New Orleans Review is delighted to announce the publication of its first book, Interviews from the Edge: 50 Years of Conversations about Writing and Resistance
(Bloomsbury 2019).

Visit the Digital Archive of NOR Print Issues, 1968-2019

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