- Miller, Ron and Fredrick C. Durant III.
The Art of Chesley Bonestell.
London: Paper Tiger, 2001.
ISBN 978-1-85585-884-8.
-
If you're interested in astronomy and space, you're almost certainly
familiar with the space art of Chesley Bonestell, who essentially
created the genre of realistic depictions of extraterrestrial
scenes. But did you know that Bonestell also:
- Was a licensed architect in the State of California,
who contributed to the design of a number of buildings
erected in Northern California in the aftermath of the
1906 earthquake?
- Chose the site for the 1915 Panama-Pacific International
Exposition (of which the San Francisco Palace of Fine Arts
remains today)?
- Laid out the Seventeen Mile Drive in Pebble Beach on the
Monterey Peninsula?
- Did detailed design of the ornamentation of the towers
of the Golden Gate Bridge, and illustrated pamphlets
explaining the engineering of the bridge?
- Worked for years in Hollywood doing matte paintings
for films including
Citizen Kane?
- Not only did the matte paintings, but designed the
buildings of Howard Roark for the film version of
The Fountainhead?
- Painted the Spanish missions of California as they would
have appeared in their heyday?
Although Bonestell always considered himself an illustrator,
not an artist, and for much of his career took no particular
care to preserve the originals of his work, here was a polymath
with a paintbrush who brought genius as well as precision to
every subject he rendered. He was, like his collaborator
on
Destination Moon,
Robert A. Heinlein (the two admired each other's talents,
but Bonestell thought Heinlein somewhat of a nut in his
political views; their relationship got off to a rocky start
when Bonestell visited Heinlein's self-designed dream
house and pronounced his architectural judgement that it
looked like a gas station), a businessman first—he would take the
job that paid best and quickest, and produced a large volume of
commercial art to order, all with the attention to detail of
his more artistically ambitious creations.
While Bonestell was modest about his artistic pretensions, he had no
shortage of self-esteem: in 1974 he painted a proposed redesign of the
facade of St. Peter's Basilica better in keeping with his interpretation
of Michelangelo's original intent and arranged to have it sent to the
Pope who responded, in essence, “Thanks, but no thanks”.
This resplendent large-format coffee table book tells the story
of Bonestell's long and extraordinarily creative career in both
text and hundreds of full-colour illustrations of his work. To
open this book to almost any page is to see worlds unknown
at the time, rendered through the eye of an artist whose mind
transported him there and sparked the dream of exploration in the
generations which expanded the human presence and quest to explore
beyond the home planet.
This book is out of print and used copies command a frightful premium;
I bought this book when it was for sale at the cover
price and didn't get around to reading all the text for seven
years, hence its tardy appearance here.
November 2008 