Zonnevlekken Possibly 1885 - 1886

This is a reproduction from l'Astronomique of an image of sunspots, called ‘Zonnevlekken’, produced in 1885 by Jules Cesar Janssen. Janssen was a French astronomer and a pioneer in astronomical photography. His meticulous observations and recordings were undertaken in a time of rapid scientific advancement, shaped by the advent of photography. Here, the dark shapes of the sunspots starkly contrast with the light of the sun’s surface, challenging conventional ideas of celestial purity. Janssen uses the then-new technology of photography to give us a view of the sun that is newly scientific. But there is something beyond scientific here, in the image's deep contrast: a feeling of something ominous or hidden in plain sight. The photograph, in the end, is a mediation between the knowable and the mysterious. It makes us ask how our attempts to understand the cosmos impact how we see our place in the universe. The emotional and personal dimensions here speak to our ongoing attempts to clarify our relationship with the cosmos.