Martin Gerlach’s „A World of Forms from Nature“. Photographs as Models for Artists around 1900
Contributions to a History of Photography in Austria (volume 3)
Astrid Mahler: Martin Gerlach’s A World of Forms from Nature. Photographs as Models for Artists around 1900 (= Contributions to a History of Photography in Austria, volume 3), Wien: Brandstätter, 2012, 96 pages, 90 figs. in color and b/w
€ 12,50
It was within the cultural and intellectual orbit of Secessionist Vienna that Martin Gerlach published the portfolio volume Formenwelt aus dem Naturreiche (A World of Forms from Nature) between 1902 and 1904. Combining photographs of plants and animals as well as photomicrographs in an unprecedented manner, the work in its choice of image sections and its manner of arranging them transformed scientific documents into the linear ornamentation of Jugendstil—which resulted in a model collection of a very special kind.