100 Beautiful Illustrations of Biologist Ernst Haeckel - Art Forms of Nature

Who’s Ernst Haeckel?

Ernst Haeckel Photograph

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, 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’ entire evolutionary development, or phylogeny.
– From Wikipedia

So why are we talking about him on Designer Rants?

Because of his beautiful illustrations from the book “Art Forms of Nature.” One hundred of the monograph plates are presented on this blog. I’ve posted them on here because I think they’re amazing, and the Wikipedia page I found them on have them listed as thumbnails, whereas I’m more of a Scroller, myself.

Phaeodaria - Print by Ernst Haeckel, Art Forms of Nature, 1904 — Phaeodaria – Print by Ernst Haeckel, Art Forms of Nature, 1904 1. Phaeodaria

Thalamphora - Print by Ernst Haeckel, Art Forms of Nature, 1904 — Print by Ernst Haeckel, Art Forms of Nature, 1904 2. Thalamphora

Ciliata - Print by Ernst Haeckel, Art Forms of Nature, 1904 — Ciliata – Print by Ernst Haeckel, Art Forms of Nature, 1904 3. Ciliata

Diatomea - Print by Ernst Haeckel, Art Forms of Nature, 1904 — Diatomea – Print by Ernst Haeckel, Art Forms of Nature, 1904 4. Diatomea

Calcispongiae - Print by Ernst Haeckel, Art Forms of Nature, 1904 — Calcispongiae – Print by Ernst Haeckel, Art Forms of Nature, 1904 5. Calcispongiae

Tubulariae - Print by Ernst Haeckel, Art Forms of Nature, 1904 — Tubulariae – Print by Ernst Haeckel, Art Forms of Nature, 1904 6. Tubulariae

Siphonophorae - Print by Ernst Haeckel, Art Forms of Nature, 1904 — Siphonophorae – Print by Ernst Haeckel, Art Forms of Nature, 1904 7. Siphonophorae

Discomedusae - Print by Ernst Haeckel, Art Forms of Nature, 1904 — Discomedusae – Print by Ernst Haeckel, Art Forms of Nature, 1904 8. Discomedusae

Hexacoralla - Print by Ernst Haeckel, Art Forms of Nature, 1904 — Hexacoralla – Print by Ernst Haeckel, Art Forms of Nature, 1904 9. Hexacoralla

Ophiodea - Print by Ernst Haeckel, Art Forms of Nature, 1904 — Ophiodea – Print by Ernst Haeckel, Art Forms of Nature, 1904 10. Ophiodea

3 Responses

Katie Saunders

02/15/2012 | Reply

Thanks for posting these amazing pictures – they are so beautiful and give such great insight. Cheers!
Michiel van der Haagen

06/27/2023 | Reply

This is amazing, I carefully looked at each image of Ernst Haeckel you posted and every single one of them is beautifull. I did not know this existed, thank you for posting these amazing images.
Ju

09/13/2023 | Reply

Thank you very much. Amazing. A genius