Space Artist
Posted in Art, Curiosities at 20:19 on 1 September 2015
The Guardian yesterday featured this painting of the first space walk:-
What makes it unusual is the artist. None other than Alexei Leonov, the subject of the painting.
That CCCP on his helmet makes it seem even more of its time.
Leonov also drew the first work of art actually to be created in space, a view of the sunrise as seen from his Voskhod 2 spacecraft. Here it is with the pencils used to draw it:-
He almost never made it back into the capsule. His suit had expanded and he had to bleed off air to get it to fit. He could have succumbed to “the bends” but thankfully didn’t.
Tags: Alexei Leonov, Space walk, The Guardian, Voskhod 2, Voskhod 2 spacecraft
Denis Cullinan
2 September 2015 at 02:21
I still have fond memories of Cheslet Bonestell, who produced many “artist’s conceptions” of alien landscapes in the fifties.
Have you notices that the usage here is still not settled? Should a half-imaginative picture of this sort be called an
artist’s conception
arist’s rendering
artist’s interpretation
etc., etc., and so forth and so fifth?
jackdeighton
2 September 2015 at 22:04
Denis,
Leonov’s painting is very similar to those artist’s conceptions by Bonestell and his cohort. I’d just call them paintings.