Microscopische opname van schubben, veertig keer vergroot 1887 - 1888

Curator: It's like looking at a ghostly planet through a dusty telescope. Eerie and beautiful. Editor: Indeed. What strikes you, beyond its strange allure? Curator: The repetition. The concentric rings. It’s biological, but there’s a celestial quality too, like rings of a nebula. There's decay alongside order...a poignant duality. Editor: That sense of order teetering on chaos certainly holds true when you examine "Microscopische opname van schubben, veertig keer vergroot" – or "Microscopic View of Scales, Forty Times Enlarged"—by Marinus Pieter Filbri, created between 1887 and 1888. A photograph offering, of course, precisely what the title states! Curator: Oh! Scales? Fish scales, you mean? Well, that does demystify it a little, but… not entirely. I’m still seeing cosmos within it, or perhaps, a strangely eroded landscape seen from above. The patterns evoke a deeply ingrained memory, like tree rings echoing seasons across an epic life-span. It reveals nature’s code, you know? How repeating patterns appear across macro and micro levels, embedding our mind in continuity across scales. Editor: That's the power of seeing the familiar in an unfamiliar way. The pictorialist style Filbri employs, lending almost an ethereal quality with subtle tonal shifts, does detach it from the stark realism we might expect from scientific imagery. The stark beauty of it all forces our eye, demanding the gaze drift within. Curator: Absolutely! These aren't just scales. They’re glyphs, containing narratives of evolution, survival… of sheer persistence. We look into the image, and into something very essential, and we confront the shared architecture of being. The circular form resonates. The microscopic meets the archetypal. I believe there may even be elements of portraiture… it is hard to say without seeing these images day in and day out! Editor: The boundaries, between genres, between scales. It allows new questions that prompt reflections. Curator: Precisely, an accidental masterpiece… or perhaps, there’s an alchemic intention buried beneath its apparent simplicity. Regardless, I’ll never look at fish the same way again! Editor: Neither will I! An entirely fresh understanding and feeling.