Polarization Microscopy as an Art Tool: Border Crossing between Art and Nature

Until recently, polarization microscopy has been little developed as an art tool. It holds, however, an enormous aesthetic potential. The author first reviews the theoretical and technical background of polarization microscopy and then discusses how selected microscopic structures imaged via polarization microscopy can be represented according to the artist’s individual aesthetic choices, the most important of which is color design by interference. The conscious perception of the pictures by the observer is discussed on the basis of our present knowledge of cognitive neurosciences. Polarization microscopy leads to a crossing of the boundaries between nature and the forms of nonrepresentational painting.