I can't recommend Alan Braddock's A Keener Perception highly enough. It might be the one breakthrough book on visual art and ecology that art history needs to get into the game. There are some wonderful essays in here. Alan's is marvelously complex. And Christoph Irmscher's one about Agassiz's illustrator vs. Haeckel is fantastic. They both draw Medusae but Agassiz's illustrator does so with an uncanny inhuman delicacy, almost photographic.
Here's what my buddy John Holbo has to say about Haeckel:
ReplyDeleteWhat is less generally known is that the artist started as a Christmas card designer. The book was originally simply an album of holiday designs. . . . During the Victorian era Christmas was indeed regarded as a 'happy' day, but one of uncanny terror; accordingly, cards and ornamentation featured strange creatures with too many tentacles. But then Santa Claus became popular, and many of these older designs 'fell out of fashion'.
Here's a set of Flickr's of contemporary Christmas cards John's designed using Haeckel's illustrations. So, this year, have yourself an uncanny Christmas and send these beauties to friends and family.