Originally intended as reference for his work as architect, sculptor, and teacher, Blossfeldt's exquisite sharp-focus photo studies of plant form — leaves, buds, stems, seed pods, tendrils and twigs — won acclaim with publication of the 1928 edition of this book. 120 full-page black-and-white plates. Original introduction. Publisher's Note. Captions.
A garden of earthly delights is in bloom!Within the mysterious world of microscopic plants lies an exciting source of design. The proof is in this amazing collection of images, a splendid mix of art and science, brimming with life forms as fascinating as any abstract art. From undulating curves to complex geometrics, this beautiful book and CD set features 364 detailed illustrations of nature's minute but magnificent handiwork. These royalty-free images are a wonderful reference for science illustrators—and designers ready to leap into new worlds of the imagination.
These black & white images of plant seeds, stems, blossoms, pods, leaves & bulbs are as arresting in their detail as they are beautiful in their simplicity. The result is a rather surreal documentary of nature as art.
The exquisite color illustrations of Haeckel's Art Forms in Nature seamlessly blend scientific accuracy with a distinctive Art Nouveau aesthetic. These compelling images stimulate awe in artists, students, and scientists of all ages.
How Karl Blossfeldt's plant photographs were disseminated in the popular media of the time, from pattern books to magazine spreads In the 1890s, the Berlin artist, sculptor and teacher Karl Blossfeldt (1865-1932) started to photograph plants, seeds and other illustrative material from nature for the purpose of teaching his students about the patterns and designs found in natural forms. His close-ups of the smallest plant parts, magnified up to 30 times their natural size, startle us as they dramatically highlight the geometrical and sculptural properties of plants. Published in 1928, his first collection of photographs, Urformen der Kunst (later translated into English as Art Forms in Nature) became an international bestseller and remains one of the most significant photobooks of the 20th century. Karl Blossfeldt: Variations is the first monograph to examine the reception of Blossfeldt's work. Drawing on unpublished materials, it analyzes the photographs' replication in teaching materials, pattern books, art books and in the pages of the illustrated press. The six sections of the book trace the paths that Blossfeldt's legendary plant motifs took in their incarnations as specimens, illustrations, patterns, analogues, models and abstractions from 1890 to 1945. Thematic contemporary appraisals illustrating the rediscovery of Blossfeldt's motifs in design and architecture over the past 20 years complement this new perspective on the beloved German photographer.
Covert Plants contributes to newly emerging discourses on the implications of vegetal life for the arts and culture. This stretches to changes in our perception of 'nature' and to the adapting roles of botany, evolutionary ecology, and environmental aesthetics in the humanities. Its editors and contributors seek various expressions of vegetal life rather than the mere representation of such, and they proceed from the conviction that a rigorous approach to thinking with and through vegetal life must be interdisciplinary. At a time when urgent calls for restorative care and reparative action have been sounded for the environment, this essay volume presents a range of academic and creative perspectives, from evolutionary biology to literary theory, philosophy to poetry, which respond to the perplexing problems and paradoxes of vegetal thinking. Representations of vegetal life often include plant analogies and plant imagery. These representations have at times obscured the diversity of plant behavior and experience. Covert Plants probes the implications of vegetal life for thought and how new plant science is changing our perception of the vegetal - around us and in us. How can we think, speak, and write about plant life without falling into human-nature dyads, or without tumbling into reductive theoretical notions about the always complex relations between cognition and action, identity and value, subject and object? A full view of this shifting perspective requires a 'stereoscopic' lens through which to view plants, but also simultaneously to alter our human-centered viewpoint. Plants are no longer the passive object of contemplation, but are increasingly resembling 'subjects, ' 'stakeholders, ' or 'actors.' As such, the plant now makes unprecedented demands upon the nature of contemplation itself. Moreover, the aesthetic, political, and legal implications of new knowledge regarding plants' ability to communicate, sense, and learn require intensive, cross-disciplinary investigation. By doing this, we can intervene into current attitudes to climate change and sustainability, and hopefully revise, for the better, human philosophies, ethics, and aesthetics that touch upon plant life. TABLE OF CONTENTS// Baylee Brits and Prudence Gibson, "Introduction: Covert Plants" - Prudence Gibson and Michael Marder, "Art Expresses Its Own Appearance: A Conversation with Michael Marder" - Prudence Gibson, "The Colour Green" - Baylee Brits, "Brain Trees: Neuroscientific Metaphor and Botanical Thought" - Dalia Nassar, "Metaphoric Plants: Goethe's Metamorphosis of Plants and the Metaphors of Reason" - Stephen Muecke, "Mixed up with Trees: The Gadgur and the Dreaming" - Monica Gagliano, "Eco-psychology and the Return to the Dream of Nature" - Suzanne Anker, "The Blue Rose" - Susie Pratt, "Trees as Landlords and Other Public Experiments: An Interview with Natalie Jeremijenko" - Tessa Laird, "Spores from Space: Becoming the Alien" - Jennifer Mae Hamilton, "Gardening After the Anthropocene: Creating Different Relations between Humans and Edible Plants in Sydney" - Lucas Ihlein, "Agricultural Inventiveness: Beyond Environmental Management?" - Andrew Belletty, "An Ear to the Ground" - Ben Woodard, "Continuous Green Abstraction: Embodied Knowledge, Intuition, and Metaphor" - Lisa Dowdall, "Figures" - Poems by Luke Fischer, Justin Clemens, Paul Dawson, and Tamryn Bennett.
Humanity's place in the natural order is under scrutiny as never before, held in a precarious balance between visible and invisible forces: from the microscopic threat of a virus to the monumental power of climate change. Drawing on indigenous traditions from the Amazon rainforest; alternative perspectives on Western scientific rationalism; and new thinking around plant intelligence, philosophy and cultural theory, The Botanical Mind Online investigates the significance of the plant kingdom to human life, consciousness and spirituality across cultures and through time. It positions the plant as both a universal symbol found in almost every civilisation and religion across the globe, and the most fundamental but misunderstood form of life on our planet. This new online project has been developed in response to the COVID-19 crisis and the closure of our galleries due to the pandemic. 'The Botanical Mind: Art, Mysticism and The Cosmic Tree' was originally conceived as a trans-generational group exhibition, but has been postponed. In the meantime, we have launched this complimentary online programme of new artist commissions, podcasts, films, texts, images and audio, expanding on and enriching the ideas and issues informing the show over at botanicalmind.online ... During this period of enforced stillness, our behaviour might be seen to resonate with plants: like them we are now fixed in one place, subject to new rhythms of time, contemplation, personal growth and transformation. Millions of years ago plants chose to forego mobility in favour of a life rooted in place, embedded in a particular context or environment. The life of a plant is one of constant, sensitive response to its environment - a process of growth, problem-solving, nourishment and transformation, played out at speeds and scales very different to our own. In this moment of global crisis and change there has perhaps never been a better moment to reflect on and learn from them.--https://camdenartcentre.org/the-botanical-mind-online/
Unique, dramatic images of seed pods, buds, stems, and other botanical items appear in this remarkable collection. Excellent source of royalty-free pictures and design ideas for artists, craftspeople. 120 full-page black-and-white plates.
