At first it sounded counter-intuitive that biologist David S. Goodsell started using watercolor to illustrate microscopic molecular phenomena, having found that they were too complicated to be digitally modeled. But of course it makes sense that programing a computer to illustrate anything on the molecular level might be difficult in all sorts of ways. And anyway, why would you want to, when these paintings are so beautiful? They have sort of an art-nouveau quality to them, and are also slightly evocative of the work of George Dunning--but are more impressive to me, as they serve a tangible educational function, illustrating Goodsells biology textbook, The Machinery of Life. I also think they would make good, if secretly kind of gross, blank notecards. Like, for stationary. Call me crazy.
Can you guess which of these paintings are of a nucleus, a cytoplasm, ecoli, and the HIV virus?
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