At the age of 63, just four years before his death, Karl Blossfeldt published his first photography book, Urformen der Kunst (later translated into English as Art Forms in Plants). The book contains 120 photographs of plants, capturing them in extraordinary detail as if viewed under a microscope, revealing their shapes and patterns in a new light. Blossfeldt used these photographs to teach his students about the hidden beauty in nature's forms.

Born in 1865 in Germany's Harz Mountains, Blossfeldt initially worked as an apprentice in an ironworks, making wrought iron gates with plant motifs. He later studied in Berlin and Rome, where he created and photographed botanical casts. From 1898, he taught design at the Berlin School of the Museum of Decorative Arts. It was here that he began using a homemade camera with custom magnifying lenses to capture these remarkable plant forms. He often collected specimens from "proletarian areas," such as railway embankments, rather than from florists or botanical gardens.

Urformen der Kunst was based on a collection of thousands of photographs, many of which were displayed in his studio. The book was published with the support of gallerist Karl Nierendorf. Blossfeldt's work aligns with the avant-garde movements of Weimar Germany, blurring the lines between nature and art. His photographs became a counterpart to the modern city’s excesses, offering a different vision of the natural world.

Critic Walter Benjamin described Blossfeldt’s work as a discovery of the "optical unconscious," showing details invisible to the naked eye. Blossfeldt's images celebrate the beauty of nature through the technology of photography, revealing forms that resemble works of art.