»The Moon’s Rapture« by Frank Frazetta

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Frank Frazetta (1928–2010) was an American fantasy and science fiction illustrator and belongs to one of the greatest artists of this genre. With his distinctive style, he was as a great example to an entire generation of artists. His work continues to receive high appreciation, down to the present day.

He began with illustrations of covers for comics and books in the 60’s began (i.e. »Conan the Barbarian« or »Tarzan«), designed movie posters (i.e. »What’s New Pussycat?« or »The Fearless Vampire Killers«) and album covers. In addition, he created a lot of free art work.

The painting »The Moon’s Rapture« from 1994, belongs to one of his later pieces. He depicts a jungle scenery with the rear view of a naked woman, who observes the Moon, while standing on a moss-covered branch. The painting lives off the extraordinary interplay of cool and warm colors, the distribution of light and shadow, as much as the skillful use of blur and sharpness. It tells a story and casts a spell over the viewer, just like the Moon appears to do so with the depicted woman.

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Particularly striking is the way in which Frazetta artistically portrayed the Moon’s surface. He frees himself completely of the astronomical guidelines and interprets the lunar maria as vibrating color fields.

Yet again, it shows that a painter is sometimes able to express more than a photographer. When it comes down to the full moon, magic can happen.

1 Comment

  1. Samuel N Collins | 10 April 2017

    this short column enchants me. Apart from the painting, which– by the way– is arresting in itself, I like also the writing style this writer applied here. The writer brings out the true literary gem, without which most stories are dead even before they can get printed.

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