Haeckel's Actiniae
We like to keep things topical here at Creatology and, with that in mind, I’d like to talk about a book published in Germany at the turn of the 20th-century. Okay, so topical it ain’t, but no blog focused on the interaction between the worlds of art and science would be complete without reference to biologist, philosopher, artist and all round overachiever, Ernst Haeckel.
Not content with coining such enduring terms as “Darwinism”, “ecology” and “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny” (admittedly, the latter turned out to be inaccurate but it’s impressively snappy nonetheless), Haeckel was the first to postulate the existence of a missing link between apes and humans, even going as far as to describe and name his theoretical proto-man. And last, but by no means least, he was also something of a genius when it came to art and design.
Haeckel's Ascidiae
Despite some dubious views on race, Haeckel was very well travelled and wherever he took his microscope it was accompanied by a sketchbook and a set of watercolours. His sketches were later turned into more than 1,000 engravings, 100 of which were brought together in Kunstformen der Natur, or Ar
Art Forms in Nature, published in full in 1904.
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