Ernst Haeckel

Being a biologist, I have great respect for the works of Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919). The former medical student shaped up to a professor in zoology creating fascinating drawings in different styles, e.g. in his work 'Art Forms in Nature' (Kunstformen der Natur). These drawings, mainly of marine life, were not always scientifically correct, but nonetheless an extraordinary piece of art. In Germany he established the idea of evolution as proposed by Darwin and developed the 'genealogical tree of organism' (Generelle Morphologie der Organismen).

	His trees of humans and especially the controversial tree of human races, allocating humans and the Aryan race to the top of the evolutionary ladder led to a misuse of his works in later Nazi-Germany and thus widely discredited him. Additionally, some drawings in the context of 'ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny' overemphasised the common ancestry of organisms which led to further criticism.
'Stammbaum der Organismen' (1866)

 

'Trochilidae'	'Disconalia Gastroblasta', 1888 on HMS Challenger