Crab Claw (Pince de Crabe)

This sinister close-up of a crab claw blurs the line between science and art. Beginning in the 1920s, Jean Painlevé produced experimental films and photographs that borrowed ideas and imagery from the Surrealists to celebrate the natural world and demonstrate, in his words, that “science is fiction.”

Painlevé often filmed sea creatures in aquariums in his studio, using emerging technologies such as microscopy and underwater cameras. While some scientists at the time doubted the work’s academic merit, artists embraced it. In the 1930s, for example, his photographs were published in the Surrealist magazine Documents.