With "Scrupulous Fidelity" and "Majestic Beauty": The Science and Art of E. L. Trouvelot’s Astronomical Drawings (1882)

Étienne Léopold Trouvelot’s portfolio of fifteen large-scale chromolithographic prints, published by Charles Scribner’s Sons to accompany Trouvelot’s Astronomical Drawings Manual (1882), were among the most influential and innovative images of astronomical phenomena produced at the end of the nineteenth century. The works effectively blurred the boundaries between art and science, receiving accolades from both professional artistic and scientific communities as well as attracting a wide public audience. Trouvelot, a French-born, Boston-based artist and amateur-turned-professional scientist, based the prints on sketches of cosmic forms that he made over the course of nearly two decades using high-powered telescopes at Harvard University, the University of Virginia, and the U.S. Naval Observatory. According to the artist, the 1882 portfolio aimed to present such forms with “scrupulous fidelity and accuracy,” while also conveying to the viewer something of “the majestic beauty and radiance of celestial objects.” Produced during a period in which photography was quickly becoming the dominant medium for astronomical imagery, Trouvelot argued forcefully against the popular assumption that photographic views of celestial phenomena were more objective or of greater scientific value than his graphic—and often quite abstract—representations. Using Trouvelot’s work as a case study, this paper examines the roles that artistic imagination and invention played in shaping scientific knowledge during the late nineteenth century and investigates the limitations that artistic media and technologies of vision imposed on such processes.