Science Through the Art of Glass
We don’t know how Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka made such astonishingly beautiful, delicate, and scientifically accurate models out of glass.
It’s hard to believe that the super-detailed scientific replicas, collectively known as The Blaschka Models, are made from glass. Firstly, the mind boggles at the sheer skill and precision. Secondly, one wonders how they’ve survived for a century or more. I mean, imagine handling one of the life-size jellyfish models, or the magnified models of microscopic single cell radiolarians with their hair-fine spines. Imagine making one! Which is all we can do, because the unique techniques employed by the father and son duo have been forgotten.
Glass has always held magical connotations, ever since its early use by the ancient Egyptians more than four-and-a-half millennia ago. It’s thought that glass was first revered as a gift from the gods, fallen from the heavens. They sought the spots where shooting stars had struck the earth, sometimes finding beads of natural silicate glass when the heat of meteorite strikes vitrified desert sand. It wasn’t until the first-century that Roman artisans learned to manipulate molten glass, shaping it by stretching and ‘blowing’. Their alchemists also experimented with adding various metal oxides to colour…
