Chesley Bonestell graced the covers of popular science books and magazines in the 1940s and early 1950s and also worked on visual effects for science fiction films and television shows. Chesley Bonestell is considered the father of space art, and his drawings contributed to the birth of the space age.
Chesley Bonestell is an American painter who spent most of his life drawing and is especially known for his space-themed paintings.
Bonestell was born in San Francisco in 1888. He first studied architecture and worked in the field of architecture for a while. However, in the following years, his interest in space exploration and astronomy increased and he began to paint space-themed paintings. At that time, space exploration had not yet been made in America and people were making space-related pictures and designs based only on their imagination.
Chesley Knight Bonestell Jr. (January 1, 1888 – June 11, 1986) was an American painter, designer, and illustrator. His paintings inspired the American space program, and they have been (and remain) influential in science fiction art and illustration. A pioneering creator of astronomical art, along with the French astronomer-artist Lucien Rudaux, Bonestell has been dubbed the "Father of Modern Space art".
In the 1940s, Bonestell started working on the visual effects of science fiction films and later began making cover illustrations for science fiction magazines. Bonestell's realistic and detailed drawings helped present science fiction stories that push the limits of imagination more realistically.
Bonestell worked with NASA at the beginning of the space program and created realistic drawings of the moon's surface during the Apollo program. These drawings guided the work of the astronauts sent by NASA to explore the moon.
He painted the details of many planets before they were discovered and even dreamed of spacecraft that would go there. While placing the objects on the stage in his drawings, he calculated the size of each and the angle of the light with scientific reality.
In his famous painting depicting Saturn from Titan, he took into account Saturn's size in the sky and its ecliptic obliquity. Chesley Bonestell's works have influenced many, from Carl Sagan to Stanley Kubrick.
Chesley Bonestell drew the image of Pluto's surface in 1949. When NASA's New Horizons spacecraft reached the dwarf planet 60 years later, it showed that it had high mountains covered in ice.
In the 1940s and 50s, when no spacecraft showed the planets in detail and most people did not know what the solar system and the planets looked like, Chesley Bonestell drew them. His drawings were published in magazines such as Collier's, Life, and Sky & Telescope, enabling people to view the Moon, Pluto, Mars, and other moons of the outer planets with impressive realism. Chesley Bonestell is considered the father of space art, and his drawings contributed to the birth of the space age. It inspired the American space program and science fiction art.
Chesley Bonestell started drawing at the age of 5 and by the time he was 10 he became obsessed with Venus. He got his start in space drawing at the age of 17 when he looked at Saturn through a space telescope. Although Chesley Bonestell later became famous for his space art, he was initially an architect. He has worked on dozens of well-known structures such as the Chrysler Building and the Golden Gate Bridge.
The reason why he draws his paintings with such precise interpretation and makes them realistic comes from being an architect. In each drawing, he calculated the size of the landscape and the angles of light while transforming an imaginary universe into a realistic scene.
Chesley Bonestell's paintings predicted the space exploration of the 20th century. His descriptions of other planets were so realistic that visiting them was no longer a fantasy. His works have been likened to picture postcards taken by a future astronaut. The realism of his drawings also came from a laborious technique: he would often create detailed model landscapes, then photograph and paint over the final print. He started doing this less and less in the 1950s because it was laborious.
After meeting the famous science writer Willy Ley, he began to include spacecraft in his drawings, and 1946 he drew Destination Moon, which depicted the manned landing on the moon and was published in Life. Science fiction writer inventor Arthur C. Clarke, while explaining the impressiveness of Bonestell's drawings, said that he was confused with real space photographs.
Wernher von Braun, one of the pioneers of rocket and space technology in the USA, was also a fan of Bonestell. He said his paintings were the most accurate depictions of celestial bodies that modern science could offer.
As the inventor of the v-2 rocket, he prepared numerous rocket ship drawings to help Bonestell, but his admiration for the painter increased with the extremely detailed questions he received from Bonestell and harsh criticisms about his inconsistency and carelessness.
Chesley Bonestell The following decades saw human space exploration become a reality. When Apollo astronauts took a soft-edged photograph of the lunar hills, he noticed that it was not similar to his 18-foot-tall drawing of the moon called "Destination Moon." However such inherent inaccuracies did not diminish the importance of Bonestell's work. His drawings gave reality to once-dry astronomical data and blurry telescopic images.
Bonestell died in 1986 with an unfinished painting on his desk. An asteroid number 3129 and a crater on Mars were named "Bonestell", as befits this man who contributed to the birth of the space age with his artistic works.
Bonestell's most famous works include his drawing called "Rings of Saturn" and "Two Moons of Mars". Additionally, Bonestell's drawings were used in the 1955 science fiction film "The Conquest of Space".
Chesley Bonestell passed away in 1986. Thanks to his work on space exploration and science fiction illustrations, he is considered one of the pioneers of space art. Bonestell's space-themed paintings revived people's dreams of space exploration and made a significant contribution to the beginning of the space age.