But did anyone aside from someone with a strong magnifying glass ever feel anything other than surprise upon seeing\u00a0the\u00a0details of a hibiscus flower painted by Georgia O’Keefe? \u00a0By devoting her entire canvas to just a portion of a single flower, we discover unseen and unsuspected beauty — check out those brilliantly flecked\u00a0anthers and that towering stigma, which bends\u00a0like a skewer above the fire of the\u00a0petals. \u00a0The artist takes liberties, drawing off\u00a0our daily experience, making the unseen seeable by our grounded eyes.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Now what about these tiny mites,\u00a0magnified by factors of many hundreds\u00a0and artistically colored by\u00a0Martin Oeggerli (published February 2015 in National Geographic<\/a>)? \u00a0It is a fair bet that no one has ever seen any of these details with their own eyes, even using a good magnifying glass. \u00a0Yet we readily see and comprehend this artistry\u00a0with feelings\u00a0and memories that are tuned to our experiences, including our experiences of\u00a0lobsters and crabs on the beach or at a seafood restaurant, or cast as raging giants in a\u00a0Japanese scifi film. \u00a0So just as with\u00a0O’Keefe’s flower, we instinctively hold onto something, however flimsy, as\u00a0we venture\u00a0somewhere new, somewhere exceedingly small, at the invitation of\u00a0the artist.<\/p>\n Alleustathia 194X (by Martin Oeggerli)<\/p><\/div>\n Scutacaridae 629K (by Martin Oeggerli)<\/p><\/div>\n In the extreme, when matter is depicted as molecules, when a protein fills a canvas or reposes on\u00a0a pedestal, what will you, the artist, offer\u00a0to the viewer as guidance for entering\u00a0the molecular world? \u00a0Is there any biology that\u00a0is too small to be shared as art?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Depicting the too-small-to-be-seen Is the small ever too small for an artist? \u00a0Representational artworks depict things we know about. \u00a0We have seen those mountains, drank from that stream, ridden such horses, walked such paths, remember the circus clowns and balloons,\u00a0sniffed … Continue reading ![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/psquared\/files\/2016\/04\/O-Keeffe-Golden-Hibiscus.jpg\")
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