Plate comparing vertebrate embryos in Ernst Haeckel’s Evolution of Man (1879). The “German Darwin” explained that similarity is greatest early (top row) and retained longer the more closely related the animals are.
Featured on PDR in the essay Copying Pictures, Evidencing Evolution
Copying — unoriginal, dull, and derivative by definition — can be creative, contested, and consequential in its effects. Nick Hopwood tracks Haeckel’s embryos, some of the most controversial pictures in the history of science, and explores how copying put them among the most widely seen.
Also appearing in the essay…
Other works by the artist in the archive…
Plate Comparing Vertebrate Embryos
Artist
Date
1879
From
Evolution of Man
