From a distance these sculptures look like ceramics, but when you take a step closer you will find out that it is pure illusion.
The unique and alive 3D sculptures are made out of many photographs of the original subjects.
Mixing the staggering beauty of pure art with a precision and dedication of great science.
No, you haven’t heard of Leopold or Rudolf Blaschka – but you certainly should have. Unlike the Greeks and the Romans, the Japanese Ukiyo-e artists, Michangelo and Leonardo, Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka aren’t well-known outside of either esoteric or scientific circles.
Simplified, here’s the story: Harvard Professor George Lincoln Goodale wanted examples to help teach botany, but the problem was plants have a tendency to … well, die. Sure, you could preserve some specimens but lots of species just don’t look the same after being dried – the plant version of stuffed and mounted. Yes, you could try using paintings or even photography but plants are – and here’s a surprise -- three dimensional. So what Professor Goodale did was ask the Blaschkas to create detailed glass plants to help him teach his students about real ones.
What the Blaschkas did, was more than just recreate plants: they created astounding works of not only scientific accuracy but pure, brilliant, art. Even the simplest of their efforts is deceptively unencumbered… a sign of their genius as their reproductions don't resemble the botanical model – they look EXACTLY like them, created by hand, in fickle and fragile glass, and all in the period 1887 to 1936.
What’s even more impressive is how many they created - more than 3,000 models of some 850 species – many of which can be seen on display at Harvard while many others are being painstakingly restored. But the Blaschkas didn’t stop at mere plants. Plants are relatively simple subjects and there are much deeper challenges out there - creatures so rare and fragile that very few men have ever seen them in their delicate flesh (even more frail than the glass the Blaschkas used to recreate them).
I wish there was some way to request a moment of silence. I wish there was some way to ask you to stop reading this and look at the pictures here and at other places of the web. I wish there was some way for you to have a nice glass of wine, put on some nice music – maybe Bach, who also mixed science and art – and just admire the care, the craft, and the pure art the Blaschkas created.
Dale Chihuly also makes incredible glass sculptures, but these are more surreal than scientifically correct:
Physics Fusion With Art?
Fabric Brain Art: This is Your Brain on Wool
Fabric MRI - slices, slices everywhere:
Street art can be educational too: here is a lesson in anatomy and graffiti skill, seen somewhere in Russia:
The Dark Side of the Moon is Buried in the Wall - and Mystery... for Another 70 Years
