Plantstudie 1928

Karl Blossfeldt made "Plantstudie", a photograph of plants, sometime in the early 20th century. There's this dance between the stark, almost scientific way he captures these plants, and how the forms verge on the abstract, like minimalist sculptures. It's a real testament to how looking closely can flip the ordinary into something totally unexpected. I'm really drawn to the textures he coaxes out of these botanical forms. The way the light catches on the ribbed surfaces of the seed pods. It's almost tactile. And you can see the precision. The plain background lets you focus on the plant's structure. It's like he's saying, "Look at this thing. Really look at it." Blossfeldt taught students to draw from nature, and you can see that impulse here. The photographs becoming almost like studies or models. It makes me think of artists like Bernd and Hilla Becher, who methodically photographed industrial structures, turning them into typologies. There is a sense of seeing the world in new ways, inviting us to see the artfulness in the everyday.