Art Forms in Nature: Prints of Ernst Haeckel

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Kunstformen der Natur was influential in early 20th-century art, architecture, and design, bridging the gap between science and art. I had no idea so many images I’ve seen in other books or as posters or even in my own curriculum came from Haeckel! The geometric shapes and natural forms, captured with exceptional precision in Ernst Haeckel's prints, still influence artists and designers to this day. It's a fabulous book, chock-a-block with exquisite drawings and a treasury of design ideas for anyone involved in any sort of artistic endeavour. Did you know there is a jellyfish-like creature that can grow to a length that exceeds that of the great whales?

This output of systematic and descriptive work would alone have constituted a good life’s work, but Haeckel in addition wrote copiously on biological theory. Among the notable prints are numerous radiolarians, which Haeckel helped to popularize among amateur microscopists; at least one example is found in almost every set of 10. Working in both pencil and watercolour paint, he preserved the complex forms, patterns, and structures of the organisms he discovered.

This was really great, but most importantly it will last -- for archiving, referencing, modifications, not just a book that'll sit on the shelf once perused -- all made easy with access to these lithographs. Drawings are lumped into classes on single pages, so you'll get for example: one page of various starfishes, but without identification of each one.

His work was credited with having caused the acceptance of Darwinism in Europe, and his popular studies―preaching the continuity of all life, organic and inorganic, from prehistoric time to the present―converted tens of thousands of readers all over the world. Multitude of strangely beautiful natural forms: Radiolaria, Foraminifera, Ciliata, diatoms, calcareous sponges, Siphonophora, star corals, starfishes, Protozoa, flagellates, brown seaweed, jellyfishes, sea-lilies, moss animals, sea-urchins, glass sponges, leptomedusae, horny corals, trunkfishes, true sea slugs, anthomedusae horseshoe crabs, sea-cucumbers, octopuses, bats, orchids, sea wasps, seahorse, a dragonfish, a frogfish, much more. But the illustrations are other-worldly both in form and in the feeling they give: that rotifers, protozoans and medusae don't just inhabit scarcely-visible parts of our world, no they have their own world which we can barely glimpse into, as different and exotic as any science-fiction artwork.P/S: Probably not as important, but I would have liked individual lithographs to have been labelled.

Not content with the study of the doctrine of evolution in its zoological aspects, Haeckel also applied it to some of the oldest problems of philosophy and religion. I had just bought this 'on spec', it is a real find and a very reasonable cost given the quality of the paper and printing! I'd never heard of Ernst Haeckel until I read about Rorschach's inkblot tests (that is the great beauty of reading: books beget books). Every living cell has psychic properties, and the psychic life of multicellular organisms is the sum-total of the psychic functions of the cells of which they are composed.Taking care to conserve the original detail, shapes, and colours as they were printed on initial publication, this beautiful volume recaptures the magic of Art Forms in Nature for a new generation to enjoy. So many pages sent me off to the web for videos, images, and articles about the bizarre natural beauties. There are some works based on corals that remind you immediately of the gene lamps of the oriental tales; the reproduction of the "ostracionte kafferfishe" is so majestic that it resembles some of the decorations in queens and kings crowns. Although the introduction was quite tedious to get through, and filled with rather unnecessary things in my opinion, the art was so well worth it and gorgeous to rocket this right up into one of my favorite “coffee table” books of all time!

The Kunstformen contains 100 beautiful lithographic plates which show a multitude of unusual life forms: Radiolaria, Foraminifera, and other forms of microscopic life; jellyfishes, starfishes, calcareous sponges, star corals, barnacles, and other sea life; mosses, lichens, red algae, ferns, fungi, orchids, and other plants; and turtles, moths, spiders, bats, frogs, lizards, hummingbirds, and antelope. Those who know about his embryo fakery (he reproduced the same woodcut print three times and claimed they depicted the embryos of three different animals) wouldn’t be surprised. I love reading about the adventurers and thinkers of the 19th and 20th centuries - seems so very long ago that we had such intrepid, innovative explorers. Kunstformen der Natur (known in English as Art Forms in Nature) is a book of lithographic and halftone prints by German biologist Ernst Haeckel. Kant's great mistake, which had such serious consequences for all of philosophy that followed, largely lies in the fact that his critical "Theory of Cognition" did not take into account physiological and phylogenetic principles which were only acquired sixty years after his death through Darwin's reform of the theory of evolution and through the discoveries of the physiology of the brain.First published in 1904 under the German title Kunstformen der Natur, this unique collection of plates holds a lasting influence in both the art and science worlds. In our collection, we honour Haeckel’s achievements with images such as ‘Actiniae’ (sea anemones), ‘Sea Snails’ and ‘Jellyfish Species’. Expect to see pages devoted to seaweeds, seaslugs, jellyfish, crustaceans, bats, fish and reptiles for example. The line drawing illustrations are really beautiful and a great source of inspiration for Lino printing. It happened that just when he was beginning his scientific career Darwin’s Origin of Species was published (1859), and such was the influence it exercised over him that he became the apostle of Darwinism in Germany.