Etienne Leopold Trouvelot
Guyencourt, France
Working with a telescope outfitted with an etched-glass grid in the eyepiece, Trouvelot made sketches on gridded paper that became the basis for stunning pastels.
He published fifteen of these as chromolithographs in The Trouvelot Astronomical Drawings Manual. In its introduction, the artist characterized photography as an aid at best, and one with serious limitations, often producing astronomical images “so blurred and indistinct that no details of any great value can be secured.”
His renderings of the lunar Mare Humorum and a total solar eclipse show that he strove not merely to make detailed records for astronomers, but also to capture the sublimity of celestial bodies.
