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The Sun:

Source of Light in Art
#SonneBarberini

Everyone worships the turning wheel of the sun.

Sophocles, fifth century BCE
 The Venetian sculptor Antonio Corradini inscribed the fiery round face of the sun directly into Apollo’s body: in this bust, the sun god is united with his symbol.

The Venetian sculptor Antonio Corradini inscribed the fiery round face of the sun directly into Apollo’s body: in this bust, the sun god is united with his symbol.

Erfahren Sie mehr: Antonio Corradini – Apollon
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The sun shines on everyone.

Gaius Petronius Arbiter, Satyricon, first century 
 Monet painted this view from a luxury hotel in the port city of Le Havre in Normandy, using rapid, sketch-like brushstrokes to capture what he saw before him.

Monet painted this view from a luxury hotel in the port city of Le Havre in Normandy, using rapid, sketch-like brushstrokes to capture what he saw before him.

Erfahren Sie mehr: Claude Monet – Impression, Sonnenaufgang
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 Skipping lightly, Day approaches, here embodied as a youth with curly hair. He holds a sun face in his upraised hand. The German painter and art writer Joachim von Sandrart created this oil painting for a Baroque banquet hall.
 Skipping lightly, Day approaches, here embodied as a youth with curly hair. He holds a sun face in his upraised hand. The German painter and art writer Joachim von Sandrart created this oil painting for a Baroque banquet hall.
The Unconquered God
Personification
First chapter

Untiring Helios, resembling the immortals (…)
brilliant light streams from him

Homeric Hymn to Helios, seventh–fifth century BCE
 The sun god Helios traverses the heavens in a four-horse chariot. According to ancient Greek mythology, the chariot rose up out of the eastern sea every morning and sank down again into the western ocean in the evening.

The sun god Helios traverses the heavens in a four-horse chariot. According to ancient Greek mythology, the chariot rose up out of the eastern sea every morning and sank down again into the western ocean in the evening.

Erfahren Sie mehr: Apulisch - Helios auf der Quadriga
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See, the sun! His chariot-light
O’er the earth already speeds,
While before his fiery steeds
Fly the stars into the vasty night.

Euripides, Ion, fifth century BCE
 The Symbolist painter Odilon Redon created multiple versions of this motif. He omitted narrative details and instead allowed color to play the leading role as a means of expression.

The Symbolist painter Odilon Redon created multiple versions of this motif. He omitted narrative details and instead allowed color to play the leading role as a means of expression.

 The four-horse chariot races across the heavens at full speed. With virtuoso skill, the Baroque painter Charles de la Fosse shows the scene from below. Here, too, the four horses of the quadriga are white.

The four-horse chariot races across the heavens at full speed. With virtuoso skill, the Baroque painter Charles de la Fosse shows the scene from below. Here, too, the four horses of the quadriga are white.

It is the triumph of light over darkness (…) like the joy of feeling better after the experience of anguish.

Odilon Redon, 1878
 The combination of a lifelike portrait and a symbolic sunburst is unusual. The inscription encircling the canvas conveys the emperor Napoleon’s claim to power: “Brilliant star, immense, it illuminates, fertilizes, and alone shapes all the destinies of the world according to its will."
Symbol of Rulership

In my domain the sun does not go down.

Friedrich Schiller, "Don Carlos", 1787
 Falling backwards, the muscular Phaëthon plummets from the sky. The engraving focuses on the virtuosic rendering of the falling figure. Both the landscape beneath him and the shattered sun chariot from which he is hurled appear tiny in the distance.
 Falling backwards, the muscular Phaëthon plummets from the sky. The engraving focuses on the virtuosic rendering of the falling figure. Both the landscape beneath him and the shattered sun chariot from which he is hurled appear tiny in the distance.
Fall of the Highflyers
Myth
Second chapter

His nearness to the devouring sun softened the fragrant wax that held the wings: and the wax melted.

Ovid, Metamorphoses
 On a large-scale canvas, the preeminent Baroque painter Peter Paul Rubens shows the dramatic climax of the Phaëthon myth. Dazzling rays of light represent Jupiter, the father of the gods, halting the wild careening of the sun chariot.

On a large-scale canvas, the preeminent Baroque painter Peter Paul Rubens shows the dramatic climax of the Phaëthon myth. Dazzling rays of light represent Jupiter, the father of the gods, halting the wild careening of the sun chariot.

Erfahren Sie mehr: Peter Paul Rubens – Der Sturz des Phaëton
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 The blessing Christ Child of Flemish Baroque painter Maarten de Vos appears as a radiant bringer of light. The rays of the sun around his head and the pink-tinted clouds herald the promise of a new day. Christian art adopted many motifs from ancient images of the sun god.
 The blessing Christ Child of Flemish Baroque painter Maarten de Vos appears as a radiant bringer of light. The rays of the sun around his head and the pink-tinted clouds herald the promise of a new day. Christian art adopted many motifs from ancient images of the sun god.
Dethronement
Biblical Interpretation
Third chapter

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. (…) And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.(…) And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.

Genesis 1:1–16
 This Bible illumination shows the Creator of the universe making the sun, moon, and stars. The standing figure of God releases the shining sun into the heavens as a source of light, placing it there with his own hands.

This Bible illumination shows the Creator of the universe making the sun, moon, and stars. The standing figure of God releases the shining sun into the heavens as a source of light, placing it there with his own hands.

Now it was about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour. Then the sun was darkened.

Luke 23, describing the Crucifixion
 The glowing halo of the crucified Christ shines brighter than the rest of the scene, which is rendered in somber tones. The Symbolist painter Franz von Stuck creates an intensely eerie atmosphere in his unusual image of Christ’s terrible death on the cross.

The glowing halo of the crucified Christ shines brighter than the rest of the scene, which is rendered in somber tones. The Symbolist painter Franz von Stuck creates an intensely eerie atmosphere in his unusual image of Christ’s terrible death on the cross.

Erfahren Sie mehr: Franz von Stuck – Kreuzigung
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 This small ivory panel from Venice, created around 1200, was originally set into the cover of a manuscript. It shows the sun and the moon to the right and left of Christ, above the horizontal beam of the cross.

This small ivory panel from Venice, created around 1200, was originally set into the cover of a manuscript. It shows the sun and the moon to the right and left of Christ, above the horizontal beam of the cross.

 The unknown master depicts the sun as a dark golden disk, positioned low in the sky. It, too, witnesses the event. 

The unknown master depicts the sun as a dark golden disk, positioned low in the sky. It, too, witnesses the event. 

 The colored woodcut is the trump card of the sun from the game of tarot. In esoteric thought, tarot cards are used for divination, and the traditional iconography of the cards is interpreted as foretelling one’s fate.
 The colored woodcut is the trump card of the sun from the game of tarot. In esoteric thought, tarot cards are used for divination, and the traditional iconography of the cards is interpreted as foretelling one’s fate.
The Power of the Constellation
Esotericism
Fourth chapter
Erfahren Sie mehr: Florentinisch, Feine Manier – Sol, aus der Folge Die Planeten
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Die Kraft und der Geist der Sonnen machen lebendig, und das geschieht auf siebenfältige Weise und Wirkung der Sonnenhitze.

Anonym, Splendor Solis oder Sonnenglanz, alchemistisches Traktat vom Stein der Weisen, 1532
Erfahren Sie mehr: Jörg Breu d.Ä. zugeschrieben – Rote Sonne, in: Splendor Solis oder Sonnenglanz. Sieben Traktate vom Stein der Weisen
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Die Sonne im Blick
Mensch und Kosmos
Fifth chapter
Franz von Assisi. Bruder Sonne

Wenn am Morgen die Sonne aufgeht, sollte jeglicher Mensch Gott loben, der sie zu unserem Nutzen geschaffen hat. Denn ihr verdanken wir, daß unsere Augen den hellen Tag sehen.

Ausspruch des Franz von Assisi, 13. Jhd., überliefert von seinen Gefährten

Dieses Land, ganz kahl, ohne Bäume, voller Steigungen, die uns überall den Horizont und die Sonne zeigen, ist gut geeignet, um mit dem heiligen Franziskus das Lied ‚Mein Bruder, die Sonne‘ zu singen.

Charles-Marie Dulac, Brief an einen Freund, 1897
Der Blick in den Himmel
Astronomie
Sixth chapter
Erfahren Sie mehr: Niederländisch – Ptolemäisches und kopernikanisches Weltbild
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do verfinstert sich die So
der Mon erpleichet

Conrad Lycosthenes über eine Sonnenfinsternis am 28. Januar 814, in seinem Buch „Wunderwerck Oder Gottes unergründtliches vorbilden“, 1557
Erfahren Sie mehr: Wilhelm Oswald Lohse – Sonnenflecken
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Die Sonne sehen
Landschaften
Seventh chapter
Erfahren Sie mehr: Schule von Claude Joseph Vernet – Hafen bei Sonnenaufgang (Morgen)
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Erfahren Sie mehr: William Turner – Mortlake Terrace
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Brüder, zur Sonne, zur Freiheit, Brüder, zum Lichte empor.

Hermann Scherchen, Brüder, zur Sonne, zur Freiheit, 1918

Wer wird heute noch die Sonne anbeten?

Theodor Däubler an Edvard Munch, 1916
Intensive Strahlkraft
Farbe
Eighth chapter

Gefesseltes Licht, wie rufen wir dich? Verborgene Wärme, Seligkeit unseres Daseins, wie rufen wir dich?

Alfred Döblin, Der Weckruf des Ich, 1933
Erfahren Sie mehr: Sonia Delaunay – Simultankontraste
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Erfahren Sie mehr: Gérard Fromanger – Die Sonne überflutet meine Leinwand
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Ich fühle die Sonnenstrahlen auf meinem Körper. 
Ich schmelze aufgelöst im warmen Licht, 
ich bin ausgedehnt über die ganze Erde…

Richard Pousette-Dart, 1960