SKIAGRAPHICS

What you are seeing is X-ray art.

These “shadow-pictures” were created by Dr. André Bruwer--a radiologist who practiced in Tucson, Arizona for over 30 years. They are called Skiagraphics.

By choosing natural objects that contain varied densities, Dr. Bruwer ensures that the X-ray images will contain an interesting array of shadows. The tulips reveal overlapping petals and dark pistals. The chambered nautilus has delicate gradations of gray with its tiny chambers on display. Images are seen in a whole new perspective.

Skiagraphics of plants and shells are sometimes mistaken for delicate pen-and-ink drawings or for black-and-white photographs. When you look more closely, it becomes clear you’re not seeing a two-dimensional rendering of nature’s beauty, you are actually seeing through the leaves and petals and into the shells’ chambers. That’s because skiagraphics are X-ray prints of natural objects.

The word skiagraphic comes from the Greek skia meaning shadow and graphic referring to drawing. An X-ray print is actually composed of overlapping shadows. Whereas a photograph is created when light bounces off a subject and onto light sensitive film, an X-ray is created when X-rays pass through an object and create shadows on X-ray-sensitive film. When a doctor flips an X-ray of your lungs onto a light box, he is looking at overlapping shadows.

Dr. Bruwer died in 2008. He left the copyright to his images to his daughter who make them available to us.