Čiurlionis’ Cosmic Visions Echo Hubble Telescope Images

Lithuanian Symbolist painter M. K. Čiurlionis (1875–1911) created works that strikingly resemble photographs taken by the Hubble Space Telescope decades later. His 13-painting cycle "Creation of the World" (1905–1906) depicts the formation of the universe, including a figure with a pipe emitting gas that mirrors Hubble's 2021 image of colliding gases in the Running Man Nebula. Another painting from the cycle shows a forming planet akin to Hubble's 2022 photo of the Chamaeleon Cloud I. In his "Sonata I—Sonata of the Sun" (1907), the "Andante" movement features solar flares similar to NASA's 2000 ultraviolet image of the Sun. The "Finale" portrays sleeping kings on pillar thrones, prefiguring the "Pillars of Creation" captured by Hubble in 2022. Čiurlionis was influenced by French astronomer Camille Flammarion's spiritual writings and the nebular hypothesis of Pierre-Simon Laplace and Immanuel Kant. His works are held at the M. K. Čiurlionis National Art Museum in Kaunas, Lithuania. The article, written by museum employee Greta Katkeviciene, highlights these uncanny parallels.