This year the world will be celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Apollo Moon Landing!
Because this is such a major milestone, I wanted to let you know about a very unique exhibition curated at Toronto’s Aga Khan Museum opening on March 9 – The Moon: A Voyage Through Time.
While the pieces at the exhibition are joined from prestigious international institutions, the highlight of this exhibition is a spectacular giant sculpture entitled Moon (image below) created by contemporary British artist Luke Jerram. This internally illuminated replica features detailed NASA imagery of the lunar surface, includes a sound composition by BAFTA-winning composer Dan Jones, and measures five metres in diameter. This will be the closest anyone (except Astronauts) will be to the moon! See video of what visitors will be able to experience: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YDOmKezwsI
In the context of the Islamic art community, this is a major contribution to the field as it’s the first ever exhibition that looks at the Moon in Islamic art and culture. It brings together important miniature paintings, scientific instruments, Islamic manuscripts, and contemporary works of art to illustrate the wonder at the moon that is shared among cultures.
This exhibition is also highly interactive (unlike typical behind-the-glass formats), and unprecedented in the way it combines archaeological, art-historical and ethnographic as well as contemporary works. The intangible arts – poetry and literature – are added to make a link between their crucial importance and the objects that represent them.
1 Sculpture fragment with a god wearing a multiple-horned crown topped by the moon Southern Mesopotamia (Iraq), ca. 2112–2004 BCE Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, anonymous gift
To people in the ancient world, the moon was much more than a celestial body, and played an important role in astronomy, astrology, mythology, and belief systems. In ancient Iraq, the moon god was called Sin or Nanna. His symbol was the bull, because the horizontal crescent of the waxing moon resembled a bull’s horns.
2 Mosque finial with crescent moon
Afghanistan, Kabul, 1950 National Museum of World Cultures, Amsterdam. Coll.no. RV-5318-12
Today, the crescent moon finial is one of the most visible symbols of Islam. Atop a domed mosque, it symbolizes not only the presence of the faith, but also that of a Muslim community. The use of crescent finials on mosques can be traced back to the early 15th century, with a sharp increase in their use after the 18th century.
3 The Beginning of Ramadan
Iran, first half of the 19th century Copyright © Aga Khan Museum
The sighting of the crescent moon marks both the beginning and the end of the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan. In this painting, the crescent moon is witnessed by the figure in the central tower’s upper chamber. The setting of the food at dusk suggests that the feast was laid out to celebrate the breaking of the fast (‘id al-fitr) at the end of the month.
4 Astrolabe
Spain, possibly Toledo, 14th century Copyright © Aga Khan Museum
To complement the exhibition, there will be a special selection of moon-related objects in the Museum’s Permanent Collection gallery, including this 14th-century Spanish astrolabe bearing inscriptions in Latin, Hebrew, and Arabic. Astrolabes serve various computational and navigational purposes, and can help track the moon’s cycle.
The Moon: A Voyage Through Time IMAGE CREDITS/CAPTIONS 1
This 5 Phases of the Moon
work, translated from Arabic to Ottoman Turkish, combines three treatises that deal with From a manuscript of the Matali‘ al-Sa‘ada wa
astrology, marvels, divination, demonology, and fortune-telling. This painting in the manuscript Manabi‘ al-Siyada (The Ascension of Propitious
shows the phases of the moon. The progression of the lunar cycle from new to full moon is Stars and Sources of Sovereignty)
depicted by blue discs, representing the night sky, and waxing and waning golden crescents. Ottoman lands, 1582 Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris
6 The Moon
Folio from a Falnama (Book of Omens) India, second half of the 16th century Wereldmuseum, Rotterdam. Acquired with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt.
In Islamic astrology, the moon (al-qamar) is often personified and considered feminine in nature. It is regularly shown as a female figure or, as in this case, a woman’s face, enclosed by a crescent moon. According to the Persian verses above and below this painting, the moon is a positive sign for the one seeking to foretell the future.
7 Dish
Iran, Kashan, late 12th to early 13th century Copyright © Aga Khan Museum
On this lustrous dish, a haloed lady with a glowing round face, almond-shaped eyes, and arched, narrow eyebrows is surrounded by equally beautiful companions. In Persian poetry, such features were called “moon-face” (mah-ruy) and they were considered the height of beauty.
8 Anvar-i Suhayli (The Lights of Canopus)
Copied by Na‘im Muhammad al-Husayni al-Tabrizi Paintings attributed to Sadiqi Beg (d. 1612) Qazvin, Iran, dated 13 Safar 1002 AH / November 8, 1593 Copyright © Aga Khan Museum
The moon features in many of the wise stories in the Anvar-i Suhayli, a collection of fables translated into Persian from Arabic during the 12th century. These stories in turn originated from a Sanskrit collection of fables composed in India in the third century BCE. This painting illustrates a story called The Duck Pecks at the Moon’s Reflection in the Water.
9 Two princes seated on a terrace overlooking the
Indian palaces included moonlight gardens (mahtab bagh). Their design combined white river and listening to music by the light of the
marble walkways, pavilions, pools, and fountains with pale, night-blossoming flowers that would moon
reflect the moon. Courtiers would gather in such gardens after dusk to enjoy the perfumed Murshidabad, India, 18th century
breeze, socialize, listen to music, recite poetry, or simply contemplate the moonlight’s reflection © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
on the water.
10 Moon
Luke Jerram, 2018 Copyright © Aga Khan Museum
Contemporary British artist Luke Jerram collaborated with the Astrogeology Science Centre in Arizona to transform detailed NASA imagery of the lunar surface into the skin of his pendant moon. The sculpture includes a sound composition by composer Dan Jones and measures five metres in diameter – to get an idea of scale, it would take 40 people standing shoulder to shoulder to circle the sculpture.
11 36 Views of the Moon
Ala Ebtekar, 2018 Courtesy of the artist and The Third Line, Dubai
Each page of this work is selected from books that describe the moon. They include writings by Omar Khayyam, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and Hafiz, among others. The artist Ala Ebtekar derived the image of the lunar surface from a photographic plate produced by the James Lick Observatory in California, then painted each page with a photosensitive solution that develops into a dark blue colour when exposed to ultraviolet light.
12 Euphoria of the Seventh Heaven
Ayham Jabr, 2017 © Collage art by Ayham Jabr
In his surreal digital collages assembled from magazines, photographs, and science fiction books, Syrian artist Ayham Jabr reimagines images of everyday life into otherworldly landscapes. Rising above the mid-20th-century snapshot of a rural town, a large photographic picture of the moon appears as the focal point of this collage set on the edge of outer space.