Art Forms in Nature: Prints of Ernst Haeckel

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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"). 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.

This particular edition is a nice large format book and while the colours may be slightly muted on the matte paper, the plates are still gorgeous to look at and quite clear enough for reference, which is why I bought it. The geometric shapes and natural forms, captured with exceptional precision in Ernst Haeckel's prints, still influence artists and designers to this day. 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). Surrounding nature offers us everywhere a marvellous wealth of lovely and interesting objects of all kinds. 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.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. 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. 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. 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. I like the discipline in that long-forgotten way you feel when you're a hardcore fangirl screaming internally upon seeing something you like.

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 was a biologist who discover many different species, some relatively minuscule species - generally varieties of flora and fauna. 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. Illustrations: Full page, full colour, all 100 original plates reproduced to an exceptional standard. These are the remarkable plates with which his work was illustrated, particularly his famous Kunstformen.In every bit of moss and blade of grass, in every beetle and butterfly, we find, when we examine it carefully, beauties which are usually overlooked. Even if you're not an artist in any kind of medium be it pencil, paint, wood, clay or crayon, this is a book worth looking at and going 'ooooh' over.

Each page features a symmetrical arrangement of etchings of related species of various classes of organism. And while these are conceptually familiar, in Haeckel's rendering they are bizarre and other-worldly. Deep-Sea Medusae (1881), Siphonophora (1888), Deep-Sea Keratosa (1889) and Radiolaria (1887), the last being accompanied by 140 plates and enumerating over four thousand new species. Gorgeous prints, as virtually everyone agrees, but the first of the two introductory essays really fell flat. it had been badly trimmed so that approximately one inch of the outer edge of every page was missing.University Art Gallery, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth - An Ernst Haeckel exhibition from 2005 pairing prints from Kunstformen der Natur with modern sculptures. In 1861, at the instance of Carl Gegenbaur, he became Privatdozent at Jena; in the succeeding year he was chosen extraordinary professor of comparative anatomy and director of the Zoological Institute in the same university; in 1865 he was appointed to a chair of zoology which was specially established for his benefit. Kunstformen der Natur was influential in early 20th-century art, architecture, and design, bridging the gap between science and art.