Space Art and Astronomical Art Quotes

I hope you find the following collection of quotes about space art and astronomical art enlightening. Both astronomical art and space art played a central role in my interest in the fields of astronomy, planetary science, and space exploration, as well as my interest in art.

Astronomical Art Quotes

Edward E. Barnard

I have been watching and drawing the surface of Mars. It is wonderfully full of detail. There is certainly no question about there being mountains and large greatly elevated plateaus.

Arthur C. Clarke

The astronomical artist will always be far ahead of the explorer. They can depict scenes that no human eye will ever see, because of their danger, or their remoteness in time and space.

Elizabeth Kessler, University of Chicago

The Hubble images are part of the Romantic landscape tradition — they fit that popular, familiar model of what the natural world should look like.

Vincent Van Gogh

For my own part, I declare I know nothing whatever about it, but looking at the stars always makes me dream, as simply as I dream over the black dots representing villages and towns on a map. Why, I ask myself, shouldn't the shining dots of the sky be as accessible as the black dots on the map of France?

Space Art Quotes

Alan Bean (Former NASA Astronaut and artist)

As the centuries unfold, millions of artists will live on the moon and paint the moon and Mars as we go out into the universe.

Andrew Chaikin, author and journalist

I can say that I'm probably sitting here (Mars Society Conference) today because of space art. That's what hooked me when I was five years old. The illustrations in my astronomy books when I was a kid were, as I have written, like ‘magic portals’ that transported me from my parents' house to other worlds.

William Hartmann

The painters' eyes record events of space exploration with a wider range of emotional mood, a more intimate human response, and more unexpected perspectives than the abundant photos in the NASA collections.

Peter Nisbet, artist in the NASA Art Program

Art is about what words cannot express. Many things have happened in the exploration of space that people cannot know through photographs or newspapers/television reporting. It is the artist's task to bring forth the mysterious, the exalted, the great beauty and power surrounding these events.

Wernher von Braun on Chesley Bonestell

In my many years of association with Chesley (Bonestell) I have learned to respect, nay fear, this wonderful artist's obsession with perfection. My file cabinet is filled with sketches or rocket ships I had prepared to help in his art work - only to have them returned to me with penetrating detailed questions or blistering criticism of some inconsistency or oversight.

For more about space art, see:

• An Interview with Space Artist and Apollo 12 Astronaut Alan Bean
• Book Review: NASA/ART: 50 Years of Exploration

For more quotes about art, see:

Visit the Space and Astronomical Art Gallery