Ernst Haeckel

Ernst Haeckel and his assistant Nicholas Miklucho Maclay,
photographed in the Canary Islands in 1866.

Between 1899 and 1904, a series of natural history prints was published in Europe, which greatly influenced the emerging style of Art Noveau. Titled Art Forms in Nature, this was the crowning work of German zoologist and artist Ernst Haeckel. With his ability to keep one eye on his microscope while using the other to draw what he observed, Haeckel introduced a hidden world of minute life forms to the general public. His works, which included explicit instructions on how the intricate structures common to many microorganisms might be used to create design motifs, solidified a direct connection between science and art.

As a young zoologist, Haeckel spent time on the island of Messina, Sicily, in 1859. Using his microscope to examine droplets of seawater, he discovered a group of microorganisms known as radiolarians. These are single-celled protozoa with mineral skeletons of stunning complexity. Radiolarians would become the inspiration for many architectural designs, including the famed La Porte Monumentale, a gate by French architect René Binet featured in the Paris World Fair of 1900.

Aware of the interconnectedness between all living things, Ernst Haeckel is also responsible for naming the discipline of ecology, which he defined as “the science of the relationships of an organism with its environment.”

Ernst Haekel, Radiolaria, from Art Forms in Nature (1899-1904).

René Binet modeled the entrance gate to the Paris World Exposition in 1900
on one of Haeckel’s drawings of radiolarians. Courtesy National Gallery of Art,
Washington.