Ernst Haeckel
Detailed nature illustrations influenced Art Nouveau
Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel was a German zoologist, naturalist, eugenicist, philosopher, physician, professor, marine biologist and artist. He discovered, described and named thousands of new species, mapped a genealogical tree relating all life forms and coined many terms in biology, including ecology, phylum, phylogeny, and Protista. Haeckel promoted and popularised Charles Darwin's work in Germany and developed the influential but no longer widely held recapitulation theory ("ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny") claiming that an individual organism's biological development, or ontogeny, parallels and summarises its species' evolutionary development, or phylogeny. The published artwork of Haeckel includes over 100 detailed, multi-colour illustrations of animals and sea creatures, collected in his Kunstformen der Natur ("Art Forms of Nature"), a book which would go on to influence the Art Nouveau artistic movement. As a philosopher, Ernst Haeckel wrote Die Welträthsel (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.
Relationship Network
Master student
- Emil August Göldi Student
Artworks by this artist (100 total)
- Anthomedusae. – Blumenquallen 1904
- Acanthometra. – Stachelstrahlinge 1904
- Siphonophorae. – Staatsquallen 1904
- Thalamophora. – Kammerlinge 1904
- Blastoïdea. – Knospensterne 1904
- Lichenes. – Flechten 1904
- Talamophora. – Kammerlinge 1904
- Basimycetes. – Schwammpilze 1904
- Discomedusae. – Scheibenquallen 1904
- Siphonophorae. – Staatsquallen 1904
- Hepaticae. – Lebermoose 1904
- Ascidiae. – Seescheiden 1904
- Platodes. – Plattentiere 1904
- Campanariae. – Glockenpolnpen 1904
- Discoidea. – Scheiben-Strahlinge 1904
- Discomedusae. – Scheibenquallen 1904
- Cirripedia. – Rankenkreble 1904
- Sertulariae. – Reihenpolnpen 1904
- Aspidonia. – Schildtiere 1904
- Gamochonia. – Trichterkraken 1904