Karl Blossfeldt (1865 – 1932) was a German artist, art teacher and photographer who became known for his detailed photographs of plants, which were used as educational materials in his drawing courses. I discovered this artist when searching for guidance and inspiration while feeling stuck with detailed observational drawing.
A quick Wikipedia picture search brought up very impressive black-and-white photographs. This was a nice co-incidence because when I reflected how I might approach the task of detailed observation, I thought that I might try to do something like a black-and-white photograph, using pencil and paper. This would imply concentrating on the texture and light-dark-contrasts to create an accurate representation. Seeing the photographies of Karl Blossfeld, this was what I had in mind… the photographs are really beautiful, and they capture how fascinating nature is as a creator of structure and texture.
From a variety of publications about Karl Blossfeldt, I chose for my personal library a monograph which includes reprints of two of his publications, ‘Art forms in nature’ (Urformen der Kunst) and ‘ (Wundergarten der Natur). Both are reprints of his photographic work.
Later I found that there is another publication containing all three published books (also including ‘’ (Wunder der Natur), but that one was out of print and used prints sell at quite high prices.
So I’m happy with the book I chose and am very curious about it. I don’t think I will use the photographs to draw from them, because I guess that I need to learn by drawing from real objects, but I think the photographs are very inspiring and may help to focus my attention on details and make it easier to try and capture them, using a pencil instead of a camera. We’ll see. I might need a magnifying lens though, because my eyesight isn’t good enough anymore to focus on these tiny details in their original size.
References:
Wikipedia stub Article about Karl Blossfeldt http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Blossfeldt
(the German version of the article is quite comprehensive)
Monograph with reprints of two publications of his photographic work:
Karl Blossfeldt: Das fotografische Werk in einem Band. Urformen der Kunst. Wundergarten der Natur Schirmer/Mosel 2006
Website presentation in English by Photographische Sammlung (Cologne, Germany): Karl Blossfeldt http://www.blossfeldt.info/wEnglish/Karl_Blossfeldt/KB_index.php
Web-collection of his photographs http://www.blossfeldt.info/wEnglish/KB_WV/index.php?navid=6
The book containing all three published photographic books by Karl Blossfeldt:
Hans Christian Adam: Karl Blossfeldt 1865–1932, Köln, London, Madrid, New York, Paris, Tokyo: Benedikt Taschen Verlag GmbH, 1999 [German/English/French]
This is a reprint of all photographs which were published in “Urformen der Kunst”, “Wundergarten der Natur” and “Wunder der Natur”, with some photographs of plants and from journeys from the collection of Stiftung Moritzburg Halle (former possession of Fotokinoverlag Leipzig) and 3 self-portraits by Karl Blossfeldt