Friday, December 05, 2003
No Words to Describe It.
Although I majored in religious studies in College, I found that the most spiritually inspiring class was Astronomy 101: Stars, Galaxies and Cosmology. Each class was a slide show of the most beautiful photography available to the human race, and each picture dared us to believe that such massive and beautiful things could exist.
Possibly the best-known astronomer in America was Carl Sagan. He crafted words which brought the universe down to the earth for anyone to understand. Through him, the vast complexity of the heavens seemed at once awesome and intimate. His sensitivity to the beauty of the universe had a very spiritual quality. It moved him in his soul, and he was able to make it move others the same way.
In the film Contact, based on Sagan’s novel of the same name, Jodie Foster’s lead character is able to go out and meet the universe on humanity’s behalf. There is a moment in which we watch her as her watery eyes gaze into the stars, and she exclaims in a shocked breath, “Some celestial event… no… no words to describe it!... Poetry!... They should have sent a poet! So beautiful!... beautiful!.... I had no idea!”
Until now, I have found only one artist whose portrayal of the stars—indeed, with no words to describe them—adequately reflects the wonder of Carl Sagan’s vision. His work is so astounding that it makes me wonder: perhaps they should have sent a painter.
Greg Martin depicts planets colliding with one another, stars peeking out from behind the worlds, and nebulas erupting with color. He confronts you with the beauty of a world’s destruction, and seems to stop time at sudden moments of light in the ageless darkness of the universe.
Both Carl Sagan and Greg Martin have been able to see the human spirit reflected in the sky. Each burst of light is at once the brief span of a human life, and all the timeless potential with which it is endowed.
Statistics
This page has been viewed 827145 times
Page rendered in 0.4800 seconds
47 querie(s) executed
Debug mode is on
Total Entries: 55
Total Comments: 757
Total Trackbacks: 1101
Most Recent Entry: 07/13/2008 12:15 pm
Most Recent Comment on: 06/20/2009 01:08 pm
Total Members: 9
Total Logged in members: 0
Total guests: 10
Total anonymous users: 0
Most Recent Visitor on: 07/31/2010 04:53 pm
The most visitors ever was 197 on 03/07/2005 04:33 am
