A variety of ammonite forms, from Ernst Haeckel's 1904 Kunstformen der Natur (Art Forms in Nature).

A variety of ammonite forms, from Ernst Haeckel's 1904 work Kunstformen der Natur (Art Forms in Nature). Haeckel's work is enjoying a new popularity and his books have been reprinted.
Ernst Haeckel - Art Forms in Nature Ernst Haeckel - Art Forms from the Ocean

the nautilus

The nautilus is a mollusc that lives in the Indian and Pacific oceans. Each year, it adds a new chamber to its shell. The spiral thus generated has the proportions of the golden ratio φ discovered in antiquity by the Greeks.

Golden Spiral

The study of these relationships is called Sacred Geometry and until the Renaissance was part of a normal education.

The nautilus is descended from the prehistoric ammonite. Ammonites make wonderful fossils - some examples are shown right in a plate by the German biologist and artist Ernst Haeckel.

the chambered nautilus

Year after year beheld the silent toil
That spread his lustrous coil;
Still, as the spiral grew,
He left the past year's dwelling for the new,
Stole with soft step its shining archway through,
Built up its idle door,
Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.

- Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894)


© Michael Lavocah 2007 - 2009