“There is only one law. We natural beings can only repeat the law of the protoplasm and the structure of the world. The laws of mechanics are exemplified before our eyes in the objects of All elements of mechanical form are found in nature; the globe, the plane, the pole, the ribbon (for pulling), the screw, the cone, and the crystal.
All elements of design and decoration are found in nature; the fronds of a fern which suggest the form of a Bishop’s crozier; the pewter grass, closely allied in form to the Hindu turret: “Even the dance when the human body has its counterpart in the bud with a touchingly childlike gesture and an expression of purest spiritual tension.” Among the unicellular creatures alone are many hundreds of different designs.
By microscopic photographs, and the moving photo camera we can now not only see the smallest parts of the plant and their hidden structure, but can actually watch them growing, and thus prove the truth of the claim that form is only the frozen momentary picture of a process.”
The type of production of any age, its mode of expression in art and industry is directly traceable to the conception of nature with which its creative minds were imbued. So we see the Early English school of architecture with its spring-like quality of unfolding bud and frond developing into the lush summer of the Decorative period. In one age the artist expresses himself in stone in another he turns to clay or canvas.
Whether his work is the simple product of the human hand itself guiding the tool, or the more complex and exact product of the mechanically operated tool guided by the artist’s mind and eye, the influence of nature is still predominant.
And to those who would obstruct or deflect the course of this development we must point out that obstruction itself is used by nature to perfect her mechanical forms. The spiral, for example, is a natural and mechanically perfect method of evading resistance. It passes the obstruction with the least expenditure of energy.
“The possibilities of high aesthetic order and a thousand signs prove to us that the victory of the machine, as often lamented, is not a victory of the material over the spiritual, but of the creative spirit itself which is merely manifesting itself in a new form.”
An ordinary leaf, for example, contains a complicated system of ventilation, a drying apparatus, inimitable power engines, a cooling apparatus, and a hydraulic press. It is a factory containing an assortment of machinery. Yet it is not the plant which invents, nor we. The law of mechanical form is evolved under the dictation of necessity.
Mechanics are not the end of life. They are the necessary tools for poor struggling human beings, haunted with a thousand wants, and even threatened with snuffing out their existence if they fail to fill them. In acquiring the wherewithal to satisfy them, man can do no better than follow the ways discovered by nature. For millions of years these forms have been perfecting themselves in the workshops of nature. Buffeted by hostile winds, threatened by countless enemies, in the turmoil of existence only those forms which satisfied most perfectly the object of their aim survived. “Man can gain control of the forces of nature in another sense from what has been meant until now. He can employ all the principles of living organisms and he will have occupation for all his capital, power and talents for hundreds of years to come.”
The photographs reproduced here are by the late Professor Blossfeldt, sculptor and photographer. He made it his life work to demonstrate the close relationship between natural and artistic creative form in every branch of art. The photograph “Speak to the Earth” is by Emil Gos, Lausanne.
