By Olaf Breidbach - Art Forms from the Ocean: The Radiolarian Prints of Ernst Haeckel

by Olaf Breidbach

Excellent Book

Genres: Art, Science, Nonfiction, Design, Nature, Art Design, Biology

Paperback

First published May 28, 2005

About the author

Olaf Breidbach war ein deutscher Philosoph, Biologe und Wissenschaftshistoriker..

Olaf Breidbach was a German philosopher, biologist and science historian.

Reviews

[Hilary · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is such a beautiful and inspiring book. Ernst Haeckle observed simple life forms called radiolarion and produced these amazing illustrations. I spent a long time studying this book for inspiration for my art degree. These creatures are so beautiful, I would highly recommend just googling Ernst Haeckle images if you don't get the chance to read this. Some of these life forms are unbelievable!

[Nuno R. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ernst Haeckel was one of those talents that united science with art in a way that will last. This is his legacy. He drew, looking through the microscope, in amazing detail and artistic prowess, the life forms that he discovered. Something that we now still vallue, even if digital imaging and instant recording has come a long time ago. His patient hand and mind will last in his plates, reproduced in many forms. And even his art will be imitated, not because it is needed as a recording means, but for the beauty of it.

[Kerfe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Haeckel's 1862 atlas of the biological classification of radiolarians is still used as a reference by scientists. He recorded, described, and arranged them systematically. The short essay on his life and work talks about his influences, most notably Darwin, and also how his illustrations have in turn influenced art and design. They go way beyond simple scientific illustration.

That is the appeal for me--the skeletons of these single-celled ocean dwellers have an other-worldly and mysterious abstract and organic beauty. Enchanting and inspiring.

[Kirsten · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is just so beautiful and awesome. Haekel dedicated his life to collecting and drawing microscopic sea life, and his drawings actually hugely influenced art and design. The radiolarians are marvelously geometrical, strange-looking creatures, and this book is a wonderful thing to stare at.

[Polly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully illustrated with a great bit of information at the front on Ernst himself and the project that this book is all about. Very interesting read into his studies; the passion is a man who’s interests lie comfortably between art and biology.

[Ed Crutchley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a well-produced largish format book of Ernst Haekel’s astonishing nineteenth century drawings of his observations of hundreds of different radiolarians under a microscope. Tiny they may be, but they are quite haunting, especially those with spiky skeletons. I had seen them before, I can’t remember where, quite possibly in a nasty dream. The plates are preceded by an 18-page introduction. Worth having.

[Prof Primate · Rating 3 out of 5]

As an art book it is breathtaking; it contains beautiful taxonomic tableaux of the radiolarians Haeckel described, but, aside from a short biography -with typos-, it lacks explanatory companion texts on the natural history and etc of the species portrayed.

If it had those, I’d be blown away and give it 4 stars.

[Ellen Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

beautiful, like I dreamed of when I first saw what things look like under a microscope. would still like to do paintings based on something like that, but precise drawings like Haeckel's are beyond me.

[Dawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a beautiful book of drawings. I have no particular interest in ocean life but the detail with which Haeckel has drawn these organisms is stunning.

[Toti Posse Emiliani · Rating 5 out of 5]

amazing