Dava Sobel’s The Planet and Lynette Rene Cook Artwork

The Planets, by Dava Sobel © 1997-2009 Barnesandnoble.com llc

Dava Sobel, the best-selling author of “Longitude” and “Galileo's Daughter”, write her newest book in 2005, The Planet. Well I’m not a good reader myself, but her knowledge on the subject and the way Lynette Rene Cook, the illustrator for the book, applies her art in the book is very rich in symbolism, which makes the book interesting. In this book, Dava Sobel explores the origins and oddities of the planets through the les of popular culture, astrology, myth, science fiction, art, music, poetry, biography, and history. Her graceful way of telling the story makes the book one of important collectables for those who are interested in astronomy.

Well, here are all the 12 arts from the book.

	Model worlds: (overview) How Dava Sobel became a person of astronomy, of her childhood. There’s a diorama of the Solar System in a shoe box supposedly made by Dava Sobel during her childhood, of course a simpler solar system of the 1950s with fewer celestial body. On the wall are the numerous celestial bodies of the Solar System as people know today.
	Genesis: (the sun) Sort of Bosch’ surrealistic Garden of Eden of the planets. There’s a sundial with the sun photosphere, a solar eclipse. A hedge with the Earth’s continent of Pangaea. The sundial has the Sun’s photosphere on the surface. Solar eclipse in the sky, Animals on the roots of the central tree, weird shaped plants around, as if it was not fully developed in the Eden.
	Mythology: (Mercury) The Mercury chapter is about mythology because there is more mention of Hermes (Mercury) in myth than any other gods in the Greek pantheon. The feather probably symbolizes the fleet-footed Hermes, or the fact that his sandals have wings attached to it. On the background is the world of the dead and the world of the living (notice the tree on the foreground which is dead on the left side and alive on the right side)
	Beauty: (Venus) Temple of Venus? the fact that the Mayan has their own calendrical system based on Venus. Different phases of Venus, and the brightness of Venus compared to the Moon. Another different world on the bottom, Venus surface based on Magellan’s  radar image, the Magellan spacecraft, and the goddess Venus with her flower the rose. Also I notice a small photograph of Venera USSR’s Probe, which is the only photos of Venus’ surface.
	Geography: (Earth) On the wallpaper, the Copernican system of the universe (solar system), the perception of Earth as a flat body, Columbus’ ships, the Earth’s interior, everything related to the concept of Earth
	Lunacy: (the moon) Very much an astrology-influenced pictures, I should say that I don’t really like when this kind of subject started to appear, because sounds very much like a the mambo jumbo world of the Wiccan community or the astrologers. Nevertheless in the image is the lunar Apollo Modules on the gazebo, white flowers (sort of related with the night garden), the Luna moth, and of course water.
	Sci-Fi: (Mars) Mars surface blasting into space and drifting toward Earth, falling as a meteoroid, one of the famous Martian meteoroids is the one found in the poles, depicting bacteria-like features on the surface. UFOs, the fact that Mars is the most popular planet for us, and small balls of the watery Mars and the Mars as it was depicted by Percival Lowell, showing “canals”.
	Astrology: (Jupiter) I must say that Jupiter looks very beautiful with the horoscope. The horoscope is the real natal chart for Galileo spacecraft (okay, I don’t like this). There is also the Galileo spacecraft, the four Galilean moons, and a comet. I personally think that Lynette Cook should shows the Shoemaker-Levy instead of other comet. The fact is astrology is depicted here is also because Jupiter system is one of the discovery which led to the break up between astronomy and astrology.
	Music of the spheres: (Saturn) My favorite image for the book. It depicts Saturn as it is seen by Cassini, the Huygens space probe falling into Titan’s cloud-covered surface. On the wallpaper is the actual score from Holst’ Saturn movement (reputedly to be Holst’ favorite piece from The Planets Suite. There is also some heavenly tone created during the Renaissance and also a pattern of Cassini Spacecraft and the Huygens Probe on the tiles.
	Night air: (Uranus and Neptune) The image depicts the 7-foot telescope that Herschel used in his back yard garden. There are three Uranus in the illustration. A shattered photo frame of a comet, because Uranus was thought as a planet before; and also the Voyager image of the bleak, rather boring Uranus in the other frame.
	UFO: (Pluto) Ellis Island in the background, an association of Pluto with an alien, a foreigner, probably also a question of identity (I like this). Water flowing in from the window, symbolizes the overflowing knowledge of some other things yet to be found later (Sedna, Orcus, Varuna, Eris, etc.). The window is the window of the Lowell observatory, the place where Pluto was discovered. Something new for me: Pluto the cat, Tombaugh’s cat later named after the planet.
	Planeteers: (coda) Supposedly depicts the planets in a familiar way, as a flowers.

Some Links:

http://extrasolar.spaceart.org/theplanets.html

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/The-Planets/Dava-Sobel/e/9780641910746