Dr. Rolf Neth asked me to say a few words about my last work, which I called " Alexander Maximov's world". I could think that many of you had to learn or to study his experiments and results, when they were students. Well, I am not competent enough to give a valuation of his work or meaning in histology. But the few things I read about his work and life gave me a great deal of respect and admiration. Specially how he drew and painted the results of his experiments in such a filligran and precise way. Amongst scientists, often the work of a colleague is not always considered with great admiration rather more with a feeling of respect or competition. So, when I put up some kind of a monument for Alexander Maximov, it is the painters admiration for a scientist, who probably drew much better than I ever would do in histology.
Now to my work: There is the real and spiritual world of Alexander Maximov. The polarisation of the idea is seen on the right side which shows the three stations in his life.

First:
St. Petersburg, where he worked at the Military Medical Academy for some years.

Second:
In Berlin, the Charite Hospital, where he worked like his famous colleagues Arinkin and Botkin before. And last station of his life was the University of Chicago where he had to emigrate with heavy heart after october revolution. On the left side you see two blood pictures which have been drawn by Alexander Maximov.

Third:
The upper picture which looks like a Super Nova is a cell of a mouse fibroplast which Alexander Maximov in his time could not see like this, as the electronic microscope wasn't invented then. This is the contemporary level of this work together with the circled Wilsede motif over the tower .
If you look closer and I could help everybody with my magnifying glass, you discover that Maximov's two blood pictures are drawn in the silhouette of the Emhof (up side down) and the Granary. The Center shows the portrait of Alexander Maximov about the time as a young man in St. Petersburg and it shows close to his heart the entrance to his laboratory in the Military Academy. To end now, I sum up the key idea may be called 5 seconds of inspiration and five weeks of rather hard work. Alexander Maximov as a tower surrounded by the real buildings St. Petersburg, Berlin and Chicago and on the other hand surrounded by his spiritual buildings, the blood pictures in the silhouette of Wilsedes granary and the Emhof. So I thank you for accompanying my explanations of Alexander Maximov from St. Petersburg to us here in Wilsede.

Michel Weidemann

Maximov's world
Etching 40 x 60 by Michel Weidemann