Art Forms in Nature
Incredibly strange creatures walk the earth! Well, maybe in this case it's more accurate to say incredibly strange creatures swim and slither in the briny deep. These color plates, created by biologist Ernst Haeckel in the mid-1800s, are wonder-inspiring depictions of unusual forms of ocean life (though bug, birds, bats, and other beasts make an appearance here, too).
I've heard that Haeckel sort of force fit his drawings to conform to his unusual theories about evolution, one of which was, "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny," that is, the developmental stages of an embryo follow the same stages of the evolutionary development of a species. That doesn't really bother me, because his drawings are so beautiful. $15.75 on Amazon
Comments
haeckel's work has been scanned and put online by Kurt Stüber: http://caliban.mpiz-koeln.mpg.de/~stueber/haeckel/kunstformen/liste.html
the scans are high quality. enjoy!
Posted by: robin meier | April 7, 2006 1:42 AM
Wow - these remind me strongly of the morphing entities in Jim Woodring's "Frank" comics. Check out http://www.jimwoodring.com/gallerypages/somethinattractive/plusminus.html
Posted by: Pygmyshrew | April 12, 2006 7:00 AM