You can approach 'The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death' in a

“You can approach ‘The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death’ in a variety or combination of ways: as a startlingly eccentric hobby; as a series of unresolved murder mysteries; as the manifestation of one woman's peculiar psychic life; as a lesson in forensics; as a metaphor for the fate of women; as a photographic study.” Thus wrote Robert Gottlieb, the editor and critic whose words illuminated the strange beauty and profound depth hidden in the life’s work of Frances Glessner Lee — the mother of modern forensic science. In this sentence, Gottlieb does not merely describe an art form; he opens a window into the vast complexity of human curiosity, death, and meaning. His words remind us that truth wears many faces, and that the same creation can be both science and poetry, discipline and revelation, depending on how one dares to look.

The origin of this quote lies in Gottlieb’s reflection upon Frances Glessner Lee’s Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death, a series of meticulously crafted miniature crime scenes created in the mid-20th century. At first glance, they look like dollhouses — small, domestic spaces frozen in time. But step closer, and one sees the unsettling details: a lifeless figure sprawled across a bed, a knife glinting near a washbasin, a window slightly ajar. These were not toys, but tools. Each scene was a forensic teaching model, designed to train investigators in the art of observation — to see beyond assumption, to perceive what others might overlook. Lee, a woman in a world dominated by men, found in these tiny rooms the power to transform art into science, and death into knowledge.

When Gottlieb speaks of the “variety of ways” to approach these works, he honors the multifaceted nature of truth itself. To one, the models might appear as an eccentric pastime — a wealthy woman’s strange obsession. To another, they are miniature mysteries demanding the mind’s full engagement. To yet another, they are the psychic expressions of a woman confronting her era’s limitations, turning confinement into creation. They may be read as forensic lessons, teaching not only how to analyze crime, but how to observe life — with patience, precision, and empathy. They may also serve as a metaphor for the fate of women, trapped in domestic spaces that become both their prison and their canvas. And finally, they can be seen as pure art — a photographic study of texture, light, and silence, revealing the uneasy harmony between beauty and decay.

This layered interpretation echoes the wisdom of the ancients, who saw that all great works — be they temples, poems, or philosophies — carry within them many meanings. As the philosopher Plato once taught, the truth can be approached through different paths, each shaped by the seeker’s nature. So too with Glessner Lee’s creations: they invite not one truth, but many reflections of truth, each as valid as the other. The scientist sees evidence. The artist sees emotion. The philosopher sees fate. And the soul, beholding them all, understands that reality is vast enough to hold them together.

Consider the story of Leonardo da Vinci, who dissected corpses not for morbidity but for understanding — seeing in the body’s structure both the mystery of death and the glory of design. His sketches were at once medical diagrams and works of art, bridging the same worlds that Frances Glessner Lee inhabited centuries later. Like Leonardo, she turned her fascination with the dead into a form of enlightenment. Where society saw morbidity, she saw education. Where others saw confinement, she found freedom. Gottlieb’s words capture this same spirit: that the line between curiosity and creativity, between intellect and intuition, is not a wall but a doorway.

In saying that the Nutshell Studies may be approached as “a metaphor for the fate of women,” Gottlieb points to a deeper sorrow — the way society has often confined women’s genius within narrow rooms. Frances Glessner Lee, barred from formal education in her youth, built her own world instead — tiny, precise, and radiant with hidden knowledge. Each miniature room becomes a mirror of her own confinement, and her defiance of it. Within those walls, she placed the full measure of her intellect, her empathy, and her rebellion. In them, she gave voice to every woman whose insight was dismissed, whose mind was trapped within the walls of expectation. Thus, even her art of death became an affirmation of life — of the spirit that refuses to be silenced.

The lesson, then, is as profound as it is enduring: that truth is not singular, and that every creation, every life, must be viewed through more than one lens. The wise do not dismiss what they do not understand; they look closer, they listen deeper, they find the many voices speaking through the silence. Whether in art, in science, or in our daily lives, we must learn to see the many layers of meaning that dwell within a single thing. What seems strange may hold wisdom. What seems grim may conceal beauty. What seems trivial may, in fact, reveal eternity.

So remember the insight of Robert Gottlieb: that the same work may be seen as eccentricity or revelation, madness or genius, art or science — depending on the heart that beholds it. Approach the mysteries of the world as you would the Nutshell Studies — with humility, curiosity, and courage. Look deeply, and you will find that within the smallest room, the smallest act, the smallest moment, the vastness of the human spirit can still be seen — alive, mysterious, and endlessly unfolding.