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End Notes 
comets in art

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1. The letter “P” stands for “periodic”, meaning a comet that reappears. Non-periodic comets are those that will not return for thousands of years, if ever.
2. For updates on Rosetta’s progress, and much useful information on the probe, see the Rosetta website of the European Space Agency (ESA) at http://sci.esa.int/rosetta.
3. Philae is the name of the Nile island on which a dual-language inscribed obelisk was found. The obelisk was used, in conjunction with the Rosetta Stone, in the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphics.
4. For a comprehensive history of comets in art, see Roberta J M Olson, Fire and Ice: A History of Comets in Art, Walker and Co, New York, 1985. This book, though published back in 1985, has been invaluable in the preparation of parts of this article.
5. See http://sci.esa.int/rosetta/54198-harbingers-of-doom-windy-exhalations-or-icy-wanderers/
6. The nucleus and the coma together are called the “head” of the comet.
7. For details of this site, see http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/94.
8. See generally Xi Ze-song, “The Commentary Atlas in the Silk Book of the Han Tomb at Mawangdui”, Chinese Astronomy and Astrophysics, Vol 8, Iss 1 (1984) 1-7; and https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/deepimpact/science/comets-cultures.cfm. Apart from comet images, there other detailed drawings of clouds, mirages, halos, rainbows, lunar occultations and star groups, constituting 250 drawings in total.
9. Xi, op cit at 4-5.
10. Xi, op cit at 5. The European discovery was made in 1531.
11. This covers the 400 years from 206 BC onwards.
12. This museum is evidently closed until 2015, due to refurbishments.
13. Although called a “tapestry”, it is actually embroidered linen. It is displayed in a museum in Bayeux, Normandy.
14. See generally Olson, op cit at 13-15; Mogens Rud, The Bayeux Tapestry and the Battle of Hastings 1066, Christian Eilers, Copenhagen, 1988, 58-9.
15. G N Garmonsway (transl), The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, London 1966.
16. The Latin inscription reads ISTI MIRANT STELLA.
17. His full name was Giotto di Bondone.
18. Olson, op cit at 17; R M Jenkins, “The star of Bethlehem and the comet of AD 66”, Journal of the British Astronomical Association, 114, 6, 2004; H Chadwick (tr) Origen: Contra Celsum, CUP, 1953.
19. Roberta J M Olson and Jay M Passachoff, “New information on comet P/Halley as depicted by Giotto di Bondone and other Western artists”, Astronomy and Astrophysics, 187 (1987) 1-11, at 9. Indeed, it has even been has suggested that this influence, rather than the actual apparition of a comet, accounts for the appearance of a comet in Giotto’s work.
20. Olson and Passachoff, op cit at 1, 8-9.
21. Olson, op cit at 17; Olson and Passachoff, op cit.
22. David W Hughes et al, “Giotto’s Comet – was it the Comet of 1304 and not Comet Halley?” Q.J.R. astr Soc (1993) 34, 21. In the end, which particular comet it was is probably not a crucial issue.
23. See the useful discussion in Jenkins, op cit. 
24. King James version.
25. Jenkins, op cit at 13.
26. See discussion in E.L. Martin, The Star that Astonished the World, ASK Publications 1991; David W Hughes, The Star of Bethlehem Mystery, Dent, 1979.
27. One of them was presumably Halley. It is also possible that the two comets were one and the same, but depicted before and after perihelion
28. Fr J Stein, “Calixte III et la comète de Halley”, Specola Astronomica Vaticana, II (1909), quoted in William F Rigge, “An Historical Examination of the Connection of Callixtus III with Halley's Comet”, Popular Astronomy, 1910, at 214 - 219.
29. Stein, op cit and Rigge, op cit.
30. See under heading “Cyanide panic and the comet of 1910”.
31. Olson, op cit at 74.
32. Goodricke’s birth year is variously given as 1550 and 1560.
33. It was typical for such portraits to be done by European, not British, artists.
34. As it happened, these do not appear to have been realised, as he died relatively young. 
35. Paris correspondent for Harpers Weekly, cited in Owen Gingerich, “The Great Comet that never came”. In The Great Copernicus Chase and other adventures in astronomical history, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1992, at 167. This passage was contained in an article widely syndicated round the world.
36. Under the heading “The comet that was excommunicated (or not)”
37. Gingerich, op cit at 165. Though various other unrelated comets did arrive during that year.
38. Olson’s discussion of this incident in Fire and Ice (op cit) at 92-3 appears to overlook the fact that the promised Great Comet of 1877 in fact never arrived.
39. Officially known as C/1858 L1, first observed by the Italian astronomer Giovanni Battista Donati on 2 June 1858.
40. Olson, op cit at 93, though how one could judge comets hundreds of years apart is highly problematical.
41. J M Passachoff, Roberta J M Olson, & Martha L Hazen, “The Earliest Comet Photographs: Usherwood, Bond, and Donati 1858”, Journal for the History of Astronomy, 1996, vol 27, 129, at 131.
42. The oldest surviving photographic plate or print that clearly shows a comet’s tail is therefore, apparently, David Gill’s magnificent photograph of the 1882 comet: Passachoff, op cit at 140.
43. Marcia Pointon, "The Representation of Time in Painting: A Study of William Dyce's Pegwell Bay: A Recollection of October 5th, 1858", Art History, I, March 1978, at 99-103.  
44. Rachel Campbell-Johnston, Mysterious Wisdom: The Life and Work of Samuel Palmer, A&C Black, 2011 at 129: Roberta J M Olson, “A water-colour by Samuel Palmer of Donati’s comet, The Burlington Magazine, Vol 132, No 1052 (Nov 1990) 795-6.
45. Laura Nenzi, “Caught in the spotlight: the 1858 comet and late Tokugawa Japan”, Japan Forum, 23(1) 2011: 1-23.
46. “Comet’s Poisonous Tail”, The New York Times, 7 February 1910. 
47. Adrian Galea, “Comet Haley in 1910, as viewed from a Maltese perspective”, Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage, 12(2) 2009 p 167; P Lancaster-Brown, Halley and his Comet, Poole, Blandford Press, 1985.
48. See http://wordcraft.net/comets3.html


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© Philip McCouat 2014 

Mode of citation: Philip McCouat, "Comets in Art", Journal of Art in Society, www.artinsociety.com

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