Man has been looking at the stars since he raised his head. At first, he deified them, then measured them, then flew. But there was art between these stages. The cosmos in painting, literature, music — it is not just a backdrop. It is an attempt to make sense of infinity, one's place in it, fear and awe. From ancient myths to "Dune," from frescoes to installations — we speak of the cosmos when words fail. This article is a journey through the starry paths of creativity.

Antiquity and the Middle Ages: the cosmos as order

For the Greeks, the cosmos is not emptiness but harmony. Plato and Aristotle described the celestial spheres, but poets were not far behind. Hesiod in "Theogony" told of the origin of the stars. The stars were living beings, gods. In the Middle Ages, the cosmos became a religious sky: frescoes depicting Christ in the mandorla, surrounded by angels and planets. Dante's "Divine Comedy" is a journey through three realms, where the cosmos is a map of morality. In the visual arts — Giotto's frescoes, where the sky is no longer conditional but blue with golden stars.

Renaissance: the cosmos of man

Copernicus, Galileo — science destroyed the old picture of the world, but art did not lag behind. Raphael's fresco "The Dispute" unites the earthly and the celestial. In Bosch's "Garden of Earthly Delights," cosmic landscapes mesmerize. Astronomy enters painting: in Vermeer's "The Astronomer," a man studies the sky. Literature: Milton's "Paradise Lost" — a cosmic battle of angels, cosmology in verse. The Renaissance showed that the cosmos can be known by man, and art — his ally.

Enlightenment and Romanticism: the sublime and the infinite

In the 18th century, the cosmos became an object of scientific interest. But the Romantics brought back its mystery. Caspar David Friedrich's paintings — man against the starry sky, small and lost. Turner's cosmic whirls, precursors of abstraction. Goethe (both a poet and a scientist) wrote about color and light. "Faust" — it is also the cosmos: a journey of the spirit. Edgar Allan Poe in "Eureka" tried to grasp the universe in a poem. The cosmos became a symbol of infinity that cannot be embraced by reason, but can be felt.

Science Fiction: Jules Verne and H.G. Wells

Jules Verne sent his heroes to the Moon ("From the Earth to the Moon"), though not entirely scientifically, but entertainingly. Wells in "The First Men in the Moon" described the Seleneites. These were the first literary journeys that influenced real constructors. Science fiction made the cosmos accessible to the imagination. Martians, interplanetary ships, alien worlds appeared. This genre is a bridge between science and art.

The Golden Age of SF: Asimov, Clarke, Strugatsky

The era of the 1950-1970s. Isaac Asimov with robots and the Galactic Empire; Arthur C. Clarke — the author of "2001: A Space Odyssey" (with Kubrick). Ray Bradbury — "The Martian Chronicles," where the cosmos is a metaphor for human nostalgia. In the USSR — the Strugatsky brothers: "The Country of Blue Clouds," "It's Hard to Be a God," "Picnic at Hangzhou Bay." Their cosmos is not bright and heroic, but anxious, ethical. Literature about the cosmos stopped being only adventurous and became philosophical.

The cosmos in 20th-century painting: from Churlyonis to Rembrandt in the cosmos

Mikalojus Churlyonis wrote symphonic cycles: "Sonata of Stars," "Sonata of the Sun." His cosmos is musical, rhythmic. In the 1960s, Soviet cosmonauts: Panfilov, Belloli. The cosmos as ideology, but also as aesthetics. In the West — surrealism: Dali painted "Galactic Bees," canvases where atoms and planets are mixed. In the 1970s — "View of Earth from the Moon" (photographs), influencing landscapes. The "Cosmic Waste" installation is also art today.

cinema and music: from "2001: A Space Odyssey" to "Interstellar"

Cinema has given us images of the cosmos that have become a cultural code. "2001: A Space Odyssey" — slow, meditative, with classical music by Strauss and Ligeti. "Star Wars" — already cosmic fantasy, but also art. "Interstellar" — black holes, time dilation, organs. In music — Holst's "The Planets," Shchedrin's "Cosmic Symphony," Pink Floyd with "The Dark Side of the Moon." The cosmos in sound is a separate universe.

Contemporary art: installations, NFT, and AI

Today's artists use cosmic images, craters, waste. The "Orbit" installation from satellite debris. NFT art with views of galaxies. Neural networks generate "cosmos in the style of Van Gogh." The cosmos has become ordinary, but has not ceased to be a mystery. Art seeks answers to questions: what did we forget there? What will we leave behind?

The cosmos in art and literature is a mirror in which humanity sees its fears and hopes. From myth to meme, from poem to pixel. We will continue to look at the stars and seek ourselves in them for a long time to come.

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