Art Forms in Nature

by Ernst Haeckel

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. All images in black and white.

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

113 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1904

About the author

Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel (February 16, 1834 – August 9, 1919), also written von Haeckel, was an eminent German biologist, naturalist, philosopher, physician, professor and artist who discovered, described and named thousands of new species, mapped a genealogical tree relating all life forms, and coined many terms in biology, including anthropogeny, ecology, phylum, phylogeny, stem cell, and the kingdom Protista. Haeckel promoted and popularized Charles Darwin's work in Germany and developed the controversial recapitulation theory ("ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny") claiming that an individual organism's biological development, or ontogeny, parallels and summarizes its species' evolutionary development, or phylogeny.

The published artwork of Haeckel includes over 100 detailed, multi-colour illustrations of animals and sea creatures (see: Kunstformen der Natur, "Art Forms of Nature"). As a philosopher, Ernst Haeckel wrote Die Welträtsel (1895–1899, in English, The Riddle of the Universe, 1901), the genesis for the term "world riddle" (Welträtsel); and Freedom in Science and Teaching to support teaching evolution.

Reviews

[Petra X · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just once in a while, 5 stars aren't enough. This book is far more than amazing, it's stupendously, fantastically, magically wonderful (and that isn't hyperbole!) The book, as the introduction makes clear, is a work of scientific illustrations of primitive organisms. 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.

These are disk jellyfish. Top right is Cassiopeia

If I wasn't at all interested in science, I would still want to own this book. Indeed, until I was forced to sell it (a good offer was made and, after all I am a bookseller, I can't hang on to my favourite items forever and I managed a year with this one) it was hidden on my private shelf where I could look at it almost every day.

[Peter Tillman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Originally published in Germany as Kunstformen der Natur, it is long out of copyright and available online in various formats. Some are found here, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunstfo...
That article includes a gallery of plates, mostly in color. All 100 plates included in the 1904 edition are reproduced here, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Ku...
-- and are also copyright-free.

I read the Dover reprint listed here and for a time owned a copy of it, if memory serves. I no longer own it. Definitely worth browsing, and easier in paper of your library owns it (mine does not.) I have the ebook checked out. I don't know if it is any better than looking at the Wikipedia plates. Hoopla ebooks are a PITA to use!

[Mir · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not so mind-blowing in these days of high-resolution microscopy, but still pretty amazing from a technical drawing viewpoint. And interesting aesthetically if you leaf through and the hydra and jellies and pinecones all sort of blur together as form rather than animals.

This Dover edition does not reproduce the text.

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I checked this book out at my local library, as it was included on a list of books that had inspired the late English fashion designer Alexander McQueen and I was curious. It is truly fabulous! There are 100 Color Plates to capture our imaginations through their colors, textures and designs, which exist in nature.

[Kay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gorgeous prints, as virtually everyone agrees, but the first of the two introductory essays really fell flat. The second essay was moderately interesting. Too bad someone like Andrea Wulf didn't write an intro. Her chapter on Haeckel in her recent book, The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt's New World, was what prompted me to buy Art Forms in Nature in the first place.

Read this book for the "Reading Genres" book club "Eurobooks" meeting, for which I decided to concentrate on European entomologists. I read five books, all told, for this meeting, which was undoubtedly overkill, but which I wholeheartedly enjoyed.

[اليازية خليفة · Rating 5 out of 5]

احتجت إلى قراءة أي شيء يجعلني أتأمل..
فوجدت هذا الكُتَيِّب الذي جعلني أسترجع اللحظات التي كنت أترك دراستي فأخرج لأتنفس قليلا وينتهي بي الحال إلى محل لبيع أسماك الزينة وتحديدا الطابق السفلي لأمكث أمام حلزونات البحر والقشريات الصغيرة فأتملها إلى أن ينبهني صاحب المحل أنهم سيغلقون بعد قليل.. فأعود وخيالي يغوص في أعماق المحيطات..

هذا الكتاب أبهرني برسماته، وودت لو أنني اشتريت المجلد الكبير لأعمال هيكل كلها بدلا من هذا! ومعلومة اليوم أنه قبل أن يكون عالم أحياء تمنى أن يكون رسام طبيعة! ومشروعه كان يهدف إلى تقديم الفائدة العلمية بطريقة فنية راقية -- وأؤمن أنه حقق مراده!

[reading is my hustle · Rating 5 out of 5]

GORGEOUS :: cannot be beat.
I heart Ernst Haeckel.

[Lisa Vegan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Somehow this didn’t wow me as I’d expected. The material is interesting re art, science, nature, and philosophy. Haeckel the zoologist is just as interesting as Haeckel the artist. I thought I’d adore the prints, but while I enjoyed them, I didn’t love them. The text accompaniment, appearing early in the book before the many pages of prints, is interesting.

I’m not sure why I didn’t feel amazed by this book. I do recommend it to artists, naturalists, scientists, and anyone interested in the natural world and in art. Maybe most would be more impressed than I was.

There is a long queue of people who have this on reserve at the library, and the copy I have is almost due, so I can’t keep perusing it. I have to return it. I’m not quite interested enough in it to borrow it again and spend more time with it.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bet H.R. Giger has a copy of this book. Old drawings of microbes, animals and such in a very distinct style. The microbes and some of the sea creatures have an especially alien look to them. There's at least one free digital version and if you insist on a paper copy get something like the Prestel edition so you get the color plates.

[Tentatively, Convenience · Rating 5 out of 5]

A. Maz. Ing. A. Stound. Ing. Do words fail me? I fail words. I wdn't rate this bk, it's invaluable - wch isn't to say w/o value. Haeckel is my new favorite artist. I 'discovered' him thanks to a documentary called "Proteus - A Nineteenth Century Vision" by David LeBrun. I loved the movie. If you check it out, make sure to also check out "The Making of PROTEUS" wch I, as a film & vaudeo maker, found particularly compelling. The amt of work that LeBrun was driven to in order to complete the movie is IMPRESSIVE.

& Haeckel's incredible energy, his drive for a thorough worldview, his meticulousness, is BEYOND IMPRESSIVE. This edition has introductory essays by Olaf Breidbach & Irendäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt. I liked them both. BUT, it was Eibl-Eibesfeldt's essay that really GRABBED ME. The background on research into our perceptual mechanism(s) & their relevance to Haeckel were fascinating, engrossing. Eibl-Eibesfeldt is obviously another man w/ a vision pursued w/ profound dedication.

Eibl-Eibesfeldt quotes Haeckel at length:

"Purely speculative metaphysics, which were further developed from theories of apriorism established by Kant and which found its most radical advocate in Hegel, ultimately led to the utter rejection of empiricism and claimed that all knowledge is in fact acquired through pure reason, independent of all experience. 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. He regarded the human soul with its inborn characteristics of reason as a ready-made being and did not inquire into its historical origins ... he did not consider that this soul could have developed phylogenetically from the most closely related mammals. However, the wonderful ability to make a priori judgements has arisen through the inheritance of cerebral structures, which the vertebrate ancestors of humans acquired slowly and in stages (through adaptation and synthetic association of a posteriori experiences and perceptions). Moreover, the firmly established perceptions of mathematics and physics, which Kant explained as synthetic a priori judgements, originated by means of the phyletic development of the faculty of judgement and may be traced back to continually recurring a posteriori experiences and conclusions based thereupon. The "necessity," which Kant ascribed to a particular characteristic of these a priori judgements were these phenomena and conditions fully known."

Genius, pure genius. Alas, Eibl-Eibesfeldt goes on to develop his wonderful essay w/ this: "Is it not possible that the aesthetic sensibilities of people who have grown up in what many would find ugly, artificial environments of the industrial fringes of modern metropolises, have also been altered as a result of such new environments? If this were so, would it not explain, at least in part, the acceptance of assemblages made from found objects and other ignoble materials?" Oh well.. weren't Haeckel's radiolarian ALSO "found materials"? & "ugly" & "ignoble"? These terms reek too much of "decadent art" for me! Still, Eibl-Eibesfeldt's essay is fantastic.

BUT THE ART!!!!! Haeckel's devotion is praiseworthy in the extreme by my standards. This man was not lazy. These drawings-turned-prints are DETAILED. DDDDDEEEEETTTTTAAAAAIIIIILLLLLEEEEEDDDDD!!!!! The centerpiece of plate 61, Phaeodaria, is an alchemist's latticework if I've ever seen one. a geodesic dome, an a priori grasping of biomorphic geometry. Or something. & plate 87? What's this perspective-receding Brion Gysin-like quasi-rectangle underneath it all?

I don't care whether this man has been somewhat discredited by modern science - he's made an impression on me that once again demonstrates that the greatest minds are interspersed throughout time & aren't the flavor-of-the-month. STUDY THIS BK! STUDY EVERYTHING BY HAECKEL!

[Ariadna73 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Art forms in nature explores some of the most representative works of Ernst Haeckel. a painter/drawer/designer born in 1834 in Prussia. He dedicated his talent to faithfully reproduce some of the patterns he observed in nature; and looking to his works; one can only be amazed on how others that call themselves original just copied Mother Nature to create their designs (take for example the Fabergeés eggs; or the Sistine Chapel). As the prologue says; this book should be read not only with the eyes but also with the ears; because by looking at the artworks in sequence; one can almost hear the highly distinguishable accords of Ravel's Bolero. It starts in a shyly but magnificent manner and finishes with a climax of color and pleasure.

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. There are some pictures of coral skeletons that instantly transport the reader to a somber world; and then there is an explosion of color and movement in plant and living coral.

There is the "muscinae Laubnoose" that transports you to the dreamed trip through the rainforest. You can almost feel the embrace of nature while looking at it. This is a great book to look at in your living room with long time to absorb all that beauty.

[akemi · Rating 5 out of 5]

hydras that look like alien spaceships
flagellates that look like dark souls knights
jellies that look like corpse flowers

if people knew all the constructs of nature
in their infinite unfolding forms
biological essentialism would be more radical than social constructionism

not the lion nor the gazelle
but the coral and the polyp and the moss and the sponge
towering like burrows through the sky

a communion

[Nuno R. · Rating 5 out of 5]

100 plates of beauty. Ernst Haeckel gave us something that we can, like Escher, forever look at. Escher inscribed them in Nature, giving birth to what he saw in his mind; Haeckel engraved what he saw in Nature.

[Forked Radish · Rating 3 out of 5]

A beautiful work by an infamous faker. So, it makes sense that there would be some anomalies i.e. just why are all the plates unsigned except Nos. 68, 69, 72, 74, 79, 92, 100, and just who are Angerer & Göschl et al? Is this work a copyright crime? Is copyright infringement the reason why the 1914 second edition was abridged from 100 to 30 plates? Are only 30 of the original plates actually Haeckel’s work and did he pinch the rest? 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.

[Catalina · Rating 5 out of 5]

El arte y la naturaleza como un rizoma conectado e intermezzo en un hábitat… La belleza de la forma y la armonía de la función deben ir siempre de la mano como un propósito como la naturaleza que nunca hace nada en vano.

[Kasia♡ · Rating 5 out of 5]

5/5☆ Dokładność tego wszystkiego mnie aż przeraża, te formy są tak idealnie ukazane, z takimi szczegółami:0

[Rosella · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sinceramente disfruté más de los dibujos de animales conocidos. Los desconocidos si bien son más fascinantes no los entiendo bien.

[LillyBooks · Rating 5 out of 5]

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). Haeckel was a 19th century biologist and illustrator who specialized in mapping and painting natural history in mathematical and symmetrical diagrams that are nothing less than stunning works of art. Both flora and fauna are plotted with precision and exactitude, and the result in breathtaking. Sublime.

[BLDinMT · Rating 4 out of 5]

These detailed drawings are spectacular. So many pages sent me off to the web for videos, images, and articles about the bizarre natural beauties. What a world!! What an artist!!

Did you know there is a jellyfish-like creature that can grow to a length that exceeds that of the great whales?!? It is called a Siphonophorae. There are some great videos online.

I really wish the plates were in color, but they were still mightly impressive.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun to see the drawings that have influenced so many. What a talent. Fun to think about nature and the symmetry and beauty of it. The introductory essays provided good background material as well, although it would have been nice to hear more of Haeckel's own voice. A visionary scientist and artist. 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.

[Tri · Rating 5 out of 5]

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!

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! Absolutely incredible!

[Paul Guthrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stunningly beautiful.

Each image captures not only the tremendous exquisiteness of its subjects, but also the awe of its creator, biologist Ernst Haeckel. A Darwinist and champion of scientific thinking, Haeckel promoted and helped popularize these contentious new ideas, and helped bring sublime beauty to the human world at the same time.

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't read all the words, but I absolutely looked at all the pictures. That's what it's for, anyway. I felt like he rendered the natural world as something both amazingly beautiful and terrifying and I loved it. Totally want to have some of his work on my wall.

[Sammi · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was everything I needed right now - diatoms, lichens, radiolaria, trunkfish. It really warmed my heart. And I miss my plankton & other oceanic friends.

It came up as a recommended read on a digital app so s/o to that algorithm for nailing it.

[Ash · Rating 5 out of 5]

I “read” Ernst Haeckel Art Forms in Nature (Plates 1-100): (The World of Art) 100 All Original, Color Plates provided by Simon Hanson. It’s available to view free on Kindle Unlimited, but doesn’t link directly to Goodreads.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

At 70 years of age, Haeckel published this in 1904. So detailed, and so intriguing!

[Louise · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful is all I can say.

[Clara Hauke · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my favorite book. It's so appealing visually and I can just guess how great the scientific value is as well.

[Christine Echeverri · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was one of the most beautiful and inspirational books I have ever read.

[Deepti · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's gorgeous. I got a black and white version and it's a little hard to make out all the different parts.