Science and art have always been inseparably connected, and so far, every attempt to divide them has proven futile. If one had to choose which scientific field influenced European art most fundamentally, it would almost certainly be biology. In the middle ages microorganisms caused numerous epidemic diseases depicted in many famous artworks. At the turn of the twentieth century the scientific and technical development reached its zenith. Improvements of the microscope enabled the research of microorganisms never seen before. Young ambitious artists tired of the decrepit motifs of then popular historicism sighted entirely new forms through the microscope. They later formed new avant-garde movements such as Art Nouveau and Jugendstil. The mathematics of those natural forms is nowadays quite well understood as well. In for all that we could attribute much credit to the German natural scientist Ernst Haeckel. With his work the Art Forms in Nature (Kunstformen der Natur), he managed to present in a very innovative way the natural forms of microbes and other organisms to the wider public. The work was a source of inspiration for many future generations of esteemed artists. The potential of microbes as an image medium was first recognised by Alexander Fleming. He used bacteria as means of painting. It later evolved into a very dynamic field of BioArt. All this clearly shows the importance of a wider view and an interdisciplinary approach for attaining ground-breaking scientific and artistic achievements.
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