campanariae polyp cnidaria fine art print ernst haeckel Size:50×70 cm SourceOriginal: Library of Congress

SourceOriginal: Library of Congress

Equal parts beautiful and slightly sinister

is a 1920 science-fiction play by the Czech writer Karel Čapek

So Carl Chun

campanariae polyp cnidaria fine art print ernst haeckel Size:50×70 cm SourceOriginal: Library of CongressDelicate to the point of looking spun from glass, the campanularian hydroids in this plate show a side of the ocean most of us never see. Ernst Haeckel drew these colonial polyps tiny relatives of jellyfish and coral as branching, bell tipped structures that rise like underwater plants, each cup and stem traced with extraordinary patience. The illustration is part of Kunstformen der Natur (Art Forms in Nature), Haeckel's influential series in which