Aristarchus & Herodotus before 1873

Editor: We're looking at "Aristarchus & Herodotus," a print from before 1873 by James Nasmyth, currently held at the Rijksmuseum. It’s part of a book it seems, open to a spread featuring a lunar landscape. I find its almost monochromatic depiction of the moon's surface oddly romantic, like something Jules Verne might have dreamed up. What strikes you when you look at it? Curator: Romantic is a great word. It feels like a landscape painting from another world. Nasmyth was obsessed with the moon; he actually created plaster models based on telescopic observations and then photographed those, didn't he? It is hard to grasp that he captured light bouncing off a three-dimensional recreation. And the two names... they must be paying tribute to significant craters and in a deeper sense, to scientific observation itself. How does it feel different seeing a photographic *representation* of a model of something far, far away as opposed to, say, an actual photograph of the moon taken by a telescope at that time? Editor: That's mind-bending. So it’s like a double remove… which probably afforded him much more control and creative license in constructing this landscape. Curator: Precisely! It shifts our perception from scientific document to artistic interpretation. It really underlines how subjective observation and representation always are. Almost poetic that such exactitude still boils down to an impression of a surface… so distant, yet rendered by his hands. Editor: It makes me consider the layers of information and how interpretation shapes everything we perceive, especially in art and science. A curious mix, actually! Curator: Indeed! The moon imagined and recreated… it’s a fitting paradox, really.