Product Description: The geometric shapes and natural forms, captured with exceptional precision in Ernst Haeckel's prints, still influence artists and designers to this day. This volume highlights the research and findings of this natural scientist. Powerful modern microscopes have confirmed the accuracy of Haeckel's prints, which even in their day, became world famous. Haeckel's portfolio, first published between 1899 and 1904 in separate installments, is described in the opening essays. The plates illustrate Haeckel's fundamental monistic notion of the "unity of all living things" and the wide variety of forms are executed with utmost delicacy. Incipient microscopic organisms are juxtaposed with highly developed plants and animals. The pages, ordered according to geometric and "constructive" aspects, document the oness of the world in its most diversified forms. This collection of plates was not only well-received by scientists, but by artists and architects as well. Rene Binet, a pioneer of glass and iron constructions, Emile Galle, a renowned Art Nouveau designer, and the photographer Karl Blossfeld all make explicit reference to Haeckel in their work.
Amazon.com Review: Every biology student knows Ernst Haeckel as the originator of the "Biogenetic Law": ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny. Haeckel was a passionate student of the evolutionary shaping of biological forms, and Art Forms in Nature captures both his artistic sensibility and the scientific rigor he applied to all his studies. First published in 1904, Art Forms in Nature is a glorification of function and form, a demonstration of organic symmetry that has nothing--and everything--to do with nature as it actually exists. Each plate exhibits organisms carefully arranged and exquisitely detailed, "a symbiosis between decorative sketches and descriptive observations of nature," as Olaf Breidbach states in his fascinating introductory text. The radiolarians, medusae, rotifers, bryozoans, and even frogs and turtles lovingly recreated here are gorgeous and self-explanatory, rendered in delicate, filigreed lines, and colored gently with muted green, delicate pink, and sepia. Art students will appreciate the designs found in nature--scientists will love the evolutionary statement of form inherent in the beauty. --Therese Littleton
The dimensions are correct Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R3G0SX0PAICYS7 Video shows the size of the book, flipping through a lot of the plates and rambling.
glorious and bizarre a brilliant draftsman and scientist, heackel shows us that the natural world is not only incredibly beautiful, but weirder than anything you can invent. there are larger and more expensive editions of this book to be had, as well as smaller and digital versions. the 12" x 9" dover edition folio is a nice reference size, well printed, colorful, and a great price.
The online description versus customer comments The following is Amazon's description of this book: Paperback: 139 pages Publisher: Prestel Publishing (August 1998) Language: English ISBN-10: 3791319906 ISBN-13: 978-3791319902 Product Dimensions: 12.3 x 9.4 x 0.5 inches Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
More than one customer review states that they received a book that is only 3 inches wide. I hesitate to buy this book since the info posted may be misleading.
The best architech out there, nature This book is full of illustration of organisms you can find on nature.I repeat, it is not fantasy, these beautiful illustration are drawings of things that are right there, sometimes too small to see with the naked eye, in nature, and one can only awe at such beauty and design skills. Haeckel did a great job combining biology with art, and it shows on this book.
A note of advise: these edition has color, the other one is black&white.
What a book. Amazing images of pollen spores, bats' faces, moths, diatoms, and more - drawn by the master. Ernst Haeckel's prints were a huge influence in the Art Nouveau movement, and the introduction to the book discusses that. Just absolutely brilliant - a surreal and gorgeous look at nature at every scale.
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