The Art Of Ernst Haeckel

Posted on Saturday, 4 November, 2017 by Zheluo Cai

The Art Of Ernst Haeckel.

Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel (1834 – 1919) was born in Potsdam, Prussia (Germany). He was a zoologist and evolutionist who was a strong proponent of Darwinism, and who proposed new notions of the evolutionary descent of human beings. He studied at the University of Berlin, where his professor, the physiologist and anatomist Johannes Müller, took him on a summer expedition to observe small sea creatures off the coast of Heligoland in the North Sea. Such experiences in marine biology strongly attracted Haeckel toward zoology, but dutifully he took a medical degree, as his family wished, at Berlin in 1857. Haeckel idolised the German writer and politician Johann von Goethe, who claimed that art and science could reveal the secrets of nature. This belief led Haeckel to devote considerable time to painting. As a scientist, he travelled to Sicily, Ceylon and the North Sea, where he made many on-the-spot drawings that included underwater vegetation, aquatic creatures, frogs, birds and microorganisms. One hundred of his paintings were included in his book Kunstformen der Natur, The Art Forms of Nature. His pieces all have great detail and rich colours. The Art Forms of Nature was intended to spark the interest of the general public in naturalism. Credit: Art.com, Britannica.