Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin (1889–1977) is considered one of the first movie stars ever and made film history with his acting and his works. He is also one of the few artists who managed the transition from silent films to sound films.
Because of using archetypal imagery and symbols in his films, it is natural that the moon could also play a part somewhere. We found four references:
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.
We are approaching a more sinister subject, the werewolf, a being that apparently changes from human into a wolf on the full moon. Everyone has heard about it or seen more or less plausible interpretations in movies. Where does this belief stem from? Why a wolf of all animals? And why in the full moon light?
The word »werewolf« contains, without difficulty to recognise, the »wolf« and the word »were« that translates into »man, human« and can be found in many languages, et al. Old Enlish, Germanic, Old High German and more. So we are talking about a man wolf or a wolfman, someone who can or must take the shape of a wolf. This belief has been widespread in the old days and this had nothing to do with the cliché we are getting to see in horror movies today.
Who doesn’t enjoy seeing a shooting star in the night sky? It is said that a wish is granted, which is believed to come true if kept secret and not shared with anyone. And who doesn’t want our wishes to become a reality?
To put it in physical terms, a shooting star is a »meteor«, a luminous effect, which develops with the occurrence of a »meteoroid« (a more or less large lump of rock from space), which burns up in the earth’s atmosphere. Not to be mistaken, however, with a »meteorite«. A meteoroid is only called like that, if it hits the earth’s surface (and could actually cause immense damage). So, no need to be concerned: shooting stars are harmless and very beautiful to watch.
If you ask two lovers to which city they would like to travel to, to express their love, many will probably name two cities: Paris and Venice. While Paris embodies a variety of aspects of love, being the »city of love« (obviously also the erotic aspect), Venice stands especially for the romantic encounter between people. This must surely be the reason why so many weddings are celebrated and honeymoons are spent there.
When the sun light is reflected and diffracted in fine water droplets in the air, a rainbow arises. So what happens if the same occurs in the moon light, is there also going to be a rainbow? Well, we find the idea of a moon rainbow quite fascinating …
Let’s take a short detour into physics. What we recognise in a rainbow as an arched bow made of colourful light, are the spectral colours that develop when the “white” sunlight fans out in its different wavelenghts, which we perceive in different colours. This decomposition does also take place, when the light is sent through a glass prism.
Our article “Fishing during a full moon” has already indicated the discussion about whether moonlight might influence the behavior of fish. Now we have found a study, which was conducted by Australian scientists in 2013, who have examined the diving behavior of 39 gray reef sharks in Palau (an island country in the Pacific Ocean), namely with regards to environmental influences, like water temperature and also lunar happenings, in particular the full moon and the new moon. They tagged the sharks with transmitters and thus were able to measure where and how deep they dived during certain times.
Photography had not yet been invented when the British painter J. M. William Turner (1775–1851) created his painting »Fishermen at Sea« in 1796, where he depicts a nightly scenery at a tempestuous sea, which is lit by the full moon midst heavy clouds. This painting was the first exhibited oil painting by the then 21 year-old Turner and marked the beginning of a great career.
Have you ever seen a face or shape of an animal in passing by clouds? This tendency of our perception to find structures within an image or a pattern, is called pareidolia (derives from Greek eidolon = picture). Essentially, this is a misperception where we see objects changing subjectively. But this can also be so much fun and inspire our fantasy to search for these shapes and to find them. Children, in particular, are known to be true masters of this game.
In many languages, inside the word for the weekday »Monday« you find the word »moon«, sometimes slightly modified but mostly easily recognised. This does not appear to be a coincidence. But why? Surely, the Moon cannot only be seen on Mondays and no other good reasons comes to mind quickly why a specific day of the weekly cycle should be connected to the Moon.
The Moon has not always been there. And although, no one has been present to observe its creation, scientists today, largely share the view that our Moon originates from a collision between Earth and another planet 4.5 billion years ago.
Our Earth – that looked completely different to how we know it to be today – had been circling with the planet Theia, which was about the size of our Mars, around the Sun. Some day, these two orbs clashed, produced an inconceivably powerful collision that totally destroyed Theia and catapulted an enormous amount of rocks into the orbit of Earth.