OUT OF THE TEEMING
SEA: Glass Invertebrates by Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka
Before Jacques Cousteau
and the aqualung, before Kodachrome and underwater photography - there
were the Blaschkas, father and son glassworkers who produced some of the
most extraordinary glass objects that have ever been made. Their work
has been described as "an artistic marvel in the field of science
and a scientific marvel in the field of art."
Artifacts inevitably reflect the cultural values leading to their creation.
In 19th century Europe and America, an explosion of interest in science
and education directly affected Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka. Reflecting
these interests, new museums were built and opened to the public. They
differed from earlier museums not only by admitting the public but also
by featuring collections that illustrated science and natural history
and often displayed systematic arrangements of plants and animals.
Leopold Blaschka solved a problem that challenged the curators of these
new natural history museums-the display of marine invertebrates. Unlike
specimens with backbones, which could be stuffed and mounted, invertebrates
had to be preserved in alcohol and inevitably lost their colors and shapes.
Glass proved to be the ideal material to recreate these fragile forms.
In the latter half of the 19th century, Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka created
their glass models of marine invertebrates for educational purposes. Today
we see photographs, film and videos of undersea creatures in more color,
detail and motion than their models could ever show. Yet looking at these
artifacts now, our eyes are entranced less by their teaching function
than by their marvelous craft. We have seen the vivid images of undersea
life, but here we have strange objects of wonder: soft bodies rendered
perfectly in a hard and brittle medium. They have been created with a
breathtaking artistry and an unending devotion to mastering a difficult
material. We see a virtuosic level of craft that has become priceless
in our own era of global manufacturing. And perhaps in the future, might
the Blaschkas' glass invertebrates once again fulfill their original educational
mission? As earth's oceans are degraded, as their numbers of endangered
or threatened inhabitants grows, these 19th century teaching devices could
conceivably furnish exquisitely rendered records of what has been lost
for students of the 22nd century.