Blaschka

May 9, 2004 12:14 AM

Sea-creatures in glass. In the late 19th Century, Dresden-based glass-artist Leopold Blaschka, together with his son, Rudolf, made scores of beautiful and intricate glass models of marine invertebrates. [First link via an e-mail from Alex Vaughan.]
posted by misteraitch (10 comments total)

I heard about these in passing a few weeks ago, and it's great to actually see pictures and read about them in detail. Absolutely mind-blowing.
posted by Hypharse at 12:59 AM on May 9, 2004

This is really great, thanks for linking it.

It might even get a great big comment thread full of asthetes arguing about What Is Art. ;)
posted by kavasa at 8:47 AM on May 9, 2004

And [b]ironically enough[/b], the gallery on homepage.mac doesn't work in Opera but [i]does[/i] work in IE. Thanks, Apple!
posted by kavasa at 8:50 AM on May 9, 2004

thanks, misteraitch - you always find cool, interesting things.
posted by madamjujujive at 8:53 AM on May 9, 2004

Those are both lovely and fascinating; thanks!
posted by carter at 10:37 AM on May 9, 2004

Oh, if only I had billions of dollars to collect these...so wonderful. After visiting Harvard's collection of glass flowers and insects, I'm pleased to see my favorite marine inverts.
posted by jearbear at 10:53 AM on May 9, 2004

Harvard's collection of glass flowers

These are also the work of the Blaschkas: glass flowers (official Harvard page here, but not currently loading)
posted by Zurishaddai at 11:09 AM on May 9, 2004

At first, Pritchard drew only as long as he could hold his breath, diving and surfacing repeatedly, but later he used a dive helmet, the air pumped from the surface. Curiously, many of the resulting paintings and drawings had a "dry" look. A remark he made is pertinent here: "There is no feeling of wetness when one is below the surface." [endnote 4] Wetness is given to us by visual cues-drops of water, irregularities of sheen--that can't exist beneath the waves. This meshes with my own diving experiences. And when glass is immersed in water, it does not have a wet look.

cool observation
posted by roboto at 3:19 PM on May 9, 2004

Just amazing! Thanks, misteraitch.
posted by lobakgo at 7:10 PM on May 9, 2004

Stunning!
posted by chrid at 1:29 AM on May 10, 2004