Discomedusae
From Haeckel's Kunstformen der Natur — jellyfish, drawn like stained glass.
- Work
- Discomedusae, Tafel 8, from Kunstformen der Natur
- Artist / naturalist
- Ernst Haeckel (lithograph by Adolf Giltsch)
- Origin & date
- Germany, 1899–1904
- Held by
- Wikimedia Commons
Format
The full-resolution scan, color-managed to the source — yours to print, study, and keep.
Size
$19.00
The story
Ernst Haeckel spent his career studying radiolarians and jellyfish through the microscope, and Kunstformen der Natur (Art Forms of Nature, 1899–1904) is where that research became public spectacle: 100 lithographic plates of natural forms, drawn by Haeckel and rendered for print by Adolf Giltsch, chosen and composed specifically to argue that biology and aesthetics were the same subject. This plate groups several jellyfish species (Discomedusae), their translucent bells and trailing oral arms rendered in saturated color against bare white ground, arranged almost like a stained-glass composition. What to notice: Haeckel was a committed evolutionist and a controversial one — he believed nature's forms revealed an underlying order that validated Darwin, and Kunstformen der Natur was as much a piece of persuasion as it was a plate book. It went on to shape Art Nouveau design more directly than almost any other single scientific publication.
About this reproduction
- Faithful reproduction of a public-domain work, sourced from Wikimedia Commons’s open-access release.
- Printed to order on 200gsm EMA matte art paper: smooth, no glare.
- Color-managed to the source scan.
- Ships in 5–8 business days; satisfaction guarantee.
