Proteus - A Nineteenth Century Vision

2004

David Lebrun

For the nineteenth century, the world beneath the sea played much the same role that outer space played for the twentieth. The ocean depths were at once the ultimate scientific frontier and the reservoir of the soul : the place of the unconscious, of imagination and the fantastic.

The central figure of PROTEUS is biologist and artist Ernst Haeckel. As a young man, Haeckel found himself torn between science and art, materialism and religion, rationality and passion, outer and inner worlds. Through his discoveriesbeneath the sea, Haeckel eventually reconciled these dualities, bringing science and art together in a unitary, almost mystical vision . His work profoundly influenced not only biology but also movements, thinkers and authors as disparate as Art Nouveau and Surrealism, Sigmund Freud and D.H. Lawrence, Vladimir Lenin and Thomas Edison.

The key to Haeckel s vision was a tiny undersea organism called the radiolarian, one of the earliest forms of life. Haeckel discovered, described, classified and painted four thousand species of these one celled creatures. In their intricate geometric skeletons, seemingly infinite variety and stunning beauty, Haeckel saw the future possibilities of organic and created life.

20 years in the making and based almost entirely on images of nineteenth century painters, photographers and scientific illustrators, PROTEUS brings these undersea worlds to life in a visually stunning fusion of art, cinema and science (David Caron, Chair of Biological Sciences, USC).

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