As part of the first edition of "L'Art'Cherche", the Oceanological Observatory is pleased to present the annual and unpublished exhibition “Edouard Chatton, du tableau de cours à l'oeuvre d'art” on the Albert Sagols esplanade, in the open air in front of the Observatory.
This exhibition features some twenty reproductions of course drawings by Edouard Chatton (1883-1947), a leading French zoologist and marine biologist specializing in marine organisms.
Who is Edouard Chatton ?
Edouard Chatton was a great scientist of the early 20th century who helped to the incredible diversity of single-cell organisms that live around us, particularly in the sea. This former director of the Arago Laboratory was also the teacher of a future Nobel Prize winner, André Lwoff, for his discovery of marine marine microscopic organisms, particularly here in Banyuls. But Edouard Chatton was even more than that! Teaching at the Sorbonne, over the years, he has created some exceptional lesson plans, and it is these that we will have the pleasure of presenting at this exhibition. It's no coincidence that Chatton, as well as being a great scientist, was also an excellent painter. As well as being fascinating testimonies to the way the biological world was viewed at the beginning of the 20th century, the plates are also fascinating works of art. Edouard Chatton's lesson plans can be seen as purely as works of art. Striking in their mastery of form and colour, the use of space and the strength of line, they bear witness to the fact that the image has a major instrument of scientific discovery. Is this Art? Is it science? It doesn't really matter! Edouard Chatton's lesson plans are first and foremost a work of creation and a splendid testimony to the discovery of marine diversity.
