Inner Space.

• Author: Freund, Charles Paul
• Position: Space-related art - Brief Article

That's astronaut John Young, pondering the 1981 launch of Space Shuttle Columbia. But artist Henry Casselli left Young and the shuttle out of his title, instead calling the watercolor, "When Thoughts Turn Inward," thus making it a narrative work. Narrative paintings--they imply a story that the viewer must imagine--haven't had much status since Queen Victoria was buying them. Casselli's work is currently touring the country as part of an exhibit of NASA-sponsored paintings called "The Artistry of Space"; though it is among the least obviously concerned with the final frontier, it's one of the show's most popular.

"Artists," said the late Hereward Lester Cooke, "should be the key witnesses to history in the making." Cooke was the National Gallery's painting curator and an adviser to NASA's self-promotional art program. "In the long run, the...