Square in the Eye, preparatory drawing for the film A Trip to the Moon (Le Voyage dans la lune, 1902)
On loan to The Met
This work of art is currently on loan to the museum.In Méliès’s pioneering short film A Trip to the Moon, a group of learned astronomers board a cannon-propelled space capsule to the moon, explore its craters and caverns, and flee from an army of insect-like lunar inhabitants. As the story unfolds, the audience is treated to a spectacular array of ingenious tableaux and special effects, such as the famous sequence in which the spaceship pierces the eye of a crater-faced man in the moon. Every aspect of the imagery, including the elaborately painted theatrical backgrounds, was based on detailed sketches by Méliès, which he re-created in 1930 at the request of the film archivist Henri Langlois.
Artwork Details
- Title: Square in the Eye, preparatory drawing for the film A Trip to the Moon (Le Voyage dans la lune, 1902)
- Artist: Marie-Georges-Jean Méliès (French, Paris 1861–1938 Paris)
- Date: 1930
- Medium: Ink on paper
- Dimensions: Image: 9 1/2 × 12 1/2 in. (24.1 × 31.7 cm)
Sheet: 12 3/16 × 14 15/16 in. (31 × 38 cm) - Classification: Drawings
- Credit Line: Cinémathèque française, Paris (D082/20)
- Curatorial Department: Photographs