Nautilus

The Quest to Mimic Nature’s Trickiest Colors

iridescence in the sea: The West Indian Ocean coelacanth has iridescent scales, the sight of which inspired artist Franziska Schenk.AlessandroZocc via Shutterstock

t was an image in a book of a sparkly blue fish—a —that inspired German painter Franziska Schenk to begin a project that would occupy much of her adult life. “It was mysterious and beautiful,” she says, “and as a child I had been enamored with the sea.” She became engrossed with trying to capture that elusive beauty in her art. Making iridescent paintings would not only prove a technical challenge, but would also force Schenk to explore some of the exotic ways that

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