Girls on the Pier

I just came across an article on Sky and Telescope’s web site about Edvard Munch’s painting, Girls on the Pier. I guess there’s been some question as to why Munch chose not to paint the reflection of the moon in the water.

I’d never seen this painting before, so this “mystery” is new to me, but I can imagine if there’s been a century of art historians puzzling over the significance of the missing reflection (as the article says), then there’s also been a century of fellow artists who have been chuckling at the silliness of the historians’ lack of vision.

I don’t know who these art historians are, but I take one look at this painting and it’s obvious to me why there’s no reflection of the moon. There’s just no mystery at all. If you’ve spent any time at all looking at reflections in a lake, it’s clear that there’s a perspective shift. What you see reflected in the water is not a perfect mirror image of the view above the water. Unless your eye is at the water level, there will be a difference in what you see above and what you see below. These historians should spend less time looking at paintings, and more time looking out the window at actual nature.

Now, I can dive into a painting with the best of ‘em, and analyze something to death, but to talk about the “missing orb” as a symbolic meaning of failing memory or some other nonsense is like trying to have such an open mind that your brain falls out. In the best of symbolic interpretation, you must engage your mythic imagination as well as your rational mind. When the two spheres of thought and feeling sing together, whole new worlds of harmony are opened up. But to rely on one while ignoring the other is to fall short and see less than half.

On another note, figuring out whether the orb is the sun or the moon is fascinating to me. I love when astronomers and scientist attempt to reconstruct the time and place depicted in a painting to see what was going on in the sky. This has been done with Van Gough’s Starry Night, and others. This kind of scientific insight deepens our understanding and appreciation of a work, and all spirits are lifted. Science and Art are at their best when they walk together in service of wonder.

Read Sky & Telescope's article here