Sea, Sand, and Flame: Blaschka Glass

How could Mother Nature have created such beauty without bothering to show it off? Indifferent to the demands of self-promotion, She concealed true masterpieces in the underwater realm. Perhaps divers in the nineteenth century (the years that gave rise to oceanography and the Theory of Evolution) asked themselves that very question when they first laid eyes on the vividly colored, luminescent domain of marine invertebrates. When removed from their natural habitat, the creatures of the deep soon faded; and so cabinets of curiosities and museums of natural history turned to the Blaschkas, two master glassmakers from Bohemia, father and son, who found ways to reproduce the sea creatures in glass with absolute fidelity. Their work dazzles us to this day with its beauty, the veracity of its colors and shapes, and the perfection of its details. As we gaze upon these creations, we are drawn into a middle realm where what fades – instead – are our conventional distinctions between botany and zoology, science and art.