Proteus: a nineteenth century vision

August 5, 2005 11:19 AM

Ernst Haeckel: Die Radiolarien (1862): a microscopic, single-celled organism, the radiolarian extrudes the silica it draws from seawater to forms a dazzling web of crystalline, concentric shells; even more amazing, each of the 5000 known species of radiolarian forms its own unique pattern. "Proteus" is a new documentary of a 19th century biologist/evolutionary theorist/artist's fascination with these creatures. (Oh, Haeckel is also the guy who coined "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny". And he lied.)
posted by of strange foe (14 comments total)

Those are incredibly amazing! Never seen anything like it before though the process sort of reminds me of stalactites and stalacmites in caves.
posted by fenriq at 11:23 AM on August 5, 2005

There's a previous thread on the makers of the glass model right about... here.
Self-link, kinda.
posted by metaculpa at 11:37 AM on August 5, 2005

metaculpa, no wonder the glass model looked familiar somehow. Um, I should perhaps also mention that I lifted the description of the radiolarian from the movie review page wholesale.
posted by of strange foe at 11:43 AM on August 5, 2005

This guy also has Kunstformen der Natur posted. I've printed out pics from this and use them as decorations for my house.
posted by redbeard at 11:52 AM on August 5, 2005

Whoa. I can see why, redbeard.
posted by metaculpa at 12:05 PM on August 5, 2005

Evewn when a youngster in grade school he was known as a big liar...this was later confirmed by hios first girlfriend, who scoffed at his declaration of penis size, and burst into tears when he shsowed her to prove he was righht. ":Liar, Liar," she screamed and ran home.
posted by Postroad at 12:39 PM on August 5, 2005

5000 unique patterns... why, what's the evolutionary advantage, maybe just random variation surviving within a bubble of no dis-advantage? At the same time, why so interesting and beautiful to us humans, simply more happenstance?
posted by scheptech at 12:53 PM on August 5, 2005

Here's the production company's Proteus website

Thanks, of strange foe, always very happy to be reminded of EH. And you just can't beat a good pic of a tiny critter.
posted by Eothele at 4:27 PM on August 5, 2005

My wife and I each have a tattoo from Ernst Haeckel's work.
posted by Balisong at 7:38 PM on August 5, 2005

I've used the Kunstformen shots as filler slides in lectures - take a five minute break, slap the Haeckel on the overhead to kill time. Also fun to use them in an intro biology class as general overview slides for specific phylogenetic groups - as long as you let people know that Haeckel simplified and modified them to make them look "better". Still, you can't deny that the guy had a great eye for artistic composition...
posted by caution live frogs at 7:57 PM on August 5, 2005

It's not really a "new" documentary, since I saw it in June 2004 at the Atlanta Film Festival. But it was still pretty freaking awesome, a highlight of the festival for me (and I went to ~20 screenings).

Actually, the highlight of the festival for me was the 10 minute short that they opened the Proteus screening with: Marsa Abu Galawa, directed by Gerard Holthuis. A mindblowing frenzy of sight and sound.
posted by intermod at 9:17 PM on August 5, 2005

Excellent post of strange foe.
I love artistic representations of the natural world. Not a long step to science fiction at all.
posted by peacay at 9:21 PM on August 5, 2005

I am fortunate enough to have several original white-on-black Kunstformen prints on my walls. They're absolutely gorgeous and fit in nicely with my "Bridgeport, City on the Sound" theme (suitably aquatic yet beautiful in their creepiness, just like my town.) When visitors point 'em out I take great delight in recounting the "ontology begets phylogeny" lie story.

I wonder why everybody thinks I'm a nerd...

Seriously, these things crop up on ebay from time to time if anybody's interested in something a little nicer than a computer printout. The scans here, though reasonably-well detailed, simply don't do justice to the originals' rich, deep black background, delicate shading and fine linework.
posted by Opposite George at 1:42 AM on August 6, 2005

Previous Ernst Haeckel/Kunstformen thread. I was so happy to read in the NYT this week that someone made a documentary about him. Fascinating guy.
posted by mediareport at 6:10 AM on August 6, 2005