Karl Blossfeldt was born in June 1865 and died on December 9, 1932. He has gone down in history as one of the most important photographers of the 20th century, due to the more than six thousand photographs of plants he took throughout his life. A feat for someone who was not a photographer.
His photographs were for him mere cards to perceive the shape of the plants and his design, to later turn them into patterns for the iron foundry where he began working as a moulder. A lover of nature, he wanted to preserve these figures and tried a thousand techniques until he realized that with photography he could eternalize them and thus, he would always have them available to draw his patrons.
He studied graphics at the School of Applied Arts in Berlin where he would end up being a professor. He viewed his photographs as learning material, not works of art. Blossfeldt enlarged the scale of his photographs and turned them into slides, which were projected on walls and served as models for drawing classes and for observing plant details. In 2019 they became the image of the Loewe brand.
His technique was always the same: neutral background, diffused natural light and a 6 × 9 or 13 × 18 plate camera.
Blossfeldt himself considered himself more of a plant fanatic than a photographer. With precise studies of him, he discovered graphic details and as a botanist he named photographs of him with the scientific names of plants.
His first book, Urformen der Kunst (The Original Forms of Art) turned him into a myth from one day to the next.
Few Karl Blossfeldt quotes:
“The plant must be considered as a truly artistic and architectural structure”
“The plant never falls into a mere arid functionalism; it molds and forms according to logic and suitability, and with its primordial force forces everything to reach the highest artistic form”
“My botanical documents should contribute to reestablishing the link with nature. They should reawaken the sense of nature, point out its richness full of forms and encourage the viewer to observe for himself the plant world that surrounds him “
“Nature educates us in beauty and interiority and is a source of the noblest pleasure”
Photographies
To find out more about his work, his relationship with Art Nouveau, modernism and plant photography:
Taschen has published a book by Hans Christian Adam: “Karl Blossfeldt The complete published work” a volume that collects all known published images of Blossfeldt.