http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12538048 , with images from this year's 'Wellcome Image Awards', raises some similar and interesting issues of the relationship between the supposed 'objectivity' of images and the artifice used in their generation - unlike Haeckel's work it seemed that none of the works on the slideshow involved drawing, most involved some kind of computer manipulation of images, while some were photographic but not further manipulated. (The music on the slideshow seems strangely kitsch to me...)
Of course the photograph, although it may claim to be objective, is a very particular way of representing the world, it involves many decisions in its making and is a product of that process as well as being in some way a direct trace of nature...
The microscope and telescope extended our senses into the formerly invisible world. Here is Robert Hooke's engraving of the head of a Drone Fly from his Micrographia (1665).
Robert Hooke (1665) Eye of a Drone Fly from Micrographia. Copperplate engraving. Available at: http://royalsociety.org/uploadedImages/Royal_Society_Content/Photo_Gallery/Moments_of_Seeing_Further/BP_IM002217.jpg
To see a 'turn the page' version of Micrographia (Hooke 1665) (selected pages) see http://archive.nlm.nih.gov/proj/ttp/flash/hooke/hooke.html
Bibliography
BBC (2011). Audio slideshow: beautiful science. February 24. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12538048 (Accessed 25 February, 2011)
Kemp, M. (2006). Seen ¦ Unseen: art, science, and intuition from Leonardo to the Hubble Telescope. Oxford: Oxford University Press
National Library of Medicine (2011). Turning the pages online. Robert Hooke's Micrographia.
http://archive.nlm.nih.gov/proj/ttp/flash/hooke/hooke.html (Accessed 25 February, 2011)
The Royal Society (2011). Moments of seeing further. http://royalsociety.org/Moments-of-seeing-further/ (Accessed 25 February, 2011)
Of course the photograph, although it may claim to be objective, is a very particular way of representing the world, it involves many decisions in its making and is a product of that process as well as being in some way a direct trace of nature...
The microscope and telescope extended our senses into the formerly invisible world. Here is Robert Hooke's engraving of the head of a Drone Fly from his Micrographia (1665).
Robert Hooke (1665) Eye of a Drone Fly from Micrographia. Copperplate engraving. Available at: http://royalsociety.org/uploadedImages/Royal_Society_Content/Photo_Gallery/Moments_of_Seeing_Further/BP_IM002217.jpg
To see a 'turn the page' version of Micrographia (Hooke 1665) (selected pages) see http://archive.nlm.nih.gov/proj/ttp/flash/hooke/hooke.html
Bibliography
BBC (2011). Audio slideshow: beautiful science. February 24. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12538048 (Accessed 25 February, 2011)
Kemp, M. (2006). Seen ¦ Unseen: art, science, and intuition from Leonardo to the Hubble Telescope. Oxford: Oxford University Press
National Library of Medicine (2011). Turning the pages online. Robert Hooke's Micrographia.
http://archive.nlm.nih.gov/proj/ttp/flash/hooke/hooke.html (Accessed 25 February, 2011)
The Royal Society (2011). Moments of seeing further. http://royalsociety.org/Moments-of-seeing-further/ (Accessed 25 February, 2011)
Wellcome Collection (2011) Wellcome Image Awards 2011. http://www.wellcomeimageawards.org/ (Accessed 26 February 2011)
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