Word: amber
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Entomologists have occasionally found ancient insects beautifully preserved in hunks of amber, which is fossilized natural resin. It occurred to Dr. Sando that if a suitable substance could be found, the same sort of thing could be done deliberately. After much experiment he chose Plexiglas, a mixture of monomers (methyl methacrylate, ethyl methacrylate, etc.) which hardens into a glassy plastic. In blocks of this stuff he immured small dead frogs, a tarantula, the bones of a human hand (see cuts); a rattlesnake's head, complete with fangs, a peacock feather, an iridescent butterfly, a garter snake, flowers, ears...
Caught in the crystal like flies in amber were Surrealist Salvador Dali's woman with bureau drawers for breasts, a massive Spanish fountain by Etcher Sir Muirhead Bone, an opium-ridden fantasy of Painter-Poet Jean Cocteau, a woman feeding hens, by Iowa's Grant Wood. Even the shading of characteristic artists' tools was faithfully reproduced, from the wavy Japanese brush strokes of Isamu Noguchi's cat to the sculptural modeling of a Maillol nude...