Victorians were obsessed with the moon

It concentrates upon 19th-century paintings of the moon and its associated mythology, but includes also other moon-related material: a handsome French lunar globe; some more recent prints; a copy of A Midsummer Night’s Dream with splendid illustrations by W. Heath Robinson. Like Shakespeare’s terrible actors, these painters seem at times a little uncertain of exactly how to represent the moon, and its relation to man. All of this is deep background, but we see precisely this confusion in many Victorian paintings of the moon: although these scenes are set at night, there is too much light in them, as if moonlight were another, different kind of day.

Source: www.spectator.co.uk