A scandal shook Danish art when Jens Ferdinand Willumsen exhibited his etching Fertility in 1891. A heavily pregnant woman—Willumsen's wife, Juliette—and a short text about a new language of art flank a grain, which sprouts in a way that looks less like a plant than some sort of diagram. This article discusses Willumsen's etching in the context of evolutionary theory, arguing that Willumsen is a rare example of an artist who not only let the theory of evolution fuel his artistic imagination, but also concerned himself with a core issue of the theory, namely to what extent it could be applied to the language of art.