The beauty of nature and the beauty of art often intersect. The Nobel Prize-winning biologist Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard demonstrates the functions of visual attraction in animals. Natural standards of beauty are, following Darwin, both a result and a driving force of sexual reproduction, while the relatively unadorned surface of humans allows for enormous creative possibilities. Physical signals - colors, sounds, scents - also have a broader communicative function in the interspecific coexistence of animal and plant species. But how do colors and patterns develop on the body surface? Only recently have scientists succeeded in deciphering the molecular genetic mechanisms that lead to color production and distribution. In the second part of her essay, Nüsslein-Volhard outlines the historical development of the scientific understanding.