 Teleost fishes have been frequent subjects in art , reflecting their economic importance , for at least 14 @,@ 000 years . They were commonly worked into patterns in Ancient Egypt , acquiring mythological significance in Ancient Greece and Rome , and from there into Christianity as a religious symbol ; artists in China and Japan similarly use fish images symbolically . Teleosts became common in Renaissance art , with still life paintings reaching a peak of popularity in the Netherlands in the 17th century . In the 20th century , different artists such as Klee , Magritte , Matisse and Picasso used representations of teleosts to express radically different themes , from attractive to violent . The zoologist and artist Ernst Haeckel painted teleosts and other animals in his 1904 <unk> der Natur . Haeckel had become convinced by Goethe and Alexander von Humboldt that making accurate depictions of unfamiliar natural forms , such as from the deep oceans , he could not only discover " the laws of their origin and evolution but also to press into the secret parts of their beauty by sketching and painting " . 
