Antediluvian: A Nuanced look at the Paleoart of Old

Some images from Mario Lanzas's Antediluvian

Post Author - J. Carlin Decker III

Dinosaurs and the world they inhabited have held the imaginations of people for centuries. No human has seen an actual, living dinosaur, yet the mystery behind them only deepens our wonder. With the advent of paleontology and the practice of paleoart, scientists have taken fossil findings of dinosaurs and other extinct creatures and have begun to put together the pieces of how these magnificent creatures looked, moved, and lived on prehistoric Earth. 

Paleoart is a unique subfield to paleontology that combines the science of fossil study with artistic depiction. Since its origin in the mid-19th century, the practice has evolved to incorporate our continued understanding of dinosaurs. That said, there is still something inspiring to be found in those early styles of paleoart.

A recent animated short by paleoartist Mario Lanzas aims to capture that style in a very nuanced and unique way. We got to talk with Lanzas, and ask him about his process and inspirations for his amazing new piece: Antediluvian. 

Fossil Skull of an Ichthyosaur, Mary Anning (1812), and Antediluvian

Mario Lanzas is a visual and paleo artist who has been interested in natural history ever since he was a child. Making and displaying dinosaur art was a way to make spaces his own, and he quickly grew to love the process of reconstructing dinosaurs in his own style.

Today, Lanzas creates videos of his paleoart on his YouTube channel, showcasing maps of geological time, dinosaur size comparisons, and charts of evolutionary lineage. Antediluvian was a much larger project for Lanzas, a magnificent animation over three minutes in length which took nearly two years of effort. It includes the unique stylization of 19th-century paleoart along with a narrative on the creatures it shows. On his shift to such a unique project, he says: “Antediluvian is more elaborated than any of my previous works. It had to be. It's meant to pay homage to the pioneers of Paleoart.” 

The Sea Dragons as they Lived, John Martin (1840), and Antediluvian

Antediluvian is a Biblical term meaning “pre-flood,” though its use in early paleontology is also of note. As the field was in its first years, before Darwin's theory of evolution was established, dinosaurs were portrayed as hellish creatures that were meant to be wiped out via God’s wrath. Lanzas wanted to capture that dark feeling with the tone of this piece. 

“The grim aesthetic is to convey the idea of the ‘Antediluvian Era’ as a sort of Hell on Earth, full of the crawling ‘Satan's creatures’ that only knew destruction. That was presumably how the early paleontologists imagined this lost world.” 

Some of Lanzas’s biggest inspirations for Antediluvian are fossil sketches of Mary Anning, the paleoart scenes of Henry de la Beche, and the cataclysmic art of John Martin and Edouard Riou. The art of the latter two is very much in the style and belief of that “Hell on Earth” that Lanzas mentions. The film shows a world full of ‘antediluvian’ creatures: ammonites, pterosaurs, mosasaurs, plesiosaurs, and megalosaurs—similar to the designs of the Crystal Palace statues built by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins.

Ideal scene of the Lias with Ichthyosaurus and Plesiosaurus, Édouard Riou (1867), and Antediluvian

The Ichthyosaur and Plesiosaur fight is meant to replicate the iconic illustration by Edourad Riou for Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth, also inspired by the piece Duria Antiquior by Henry de la Beche. The Biblical themes of Gustave Doré's art inspired the more supernatural aspects of the short, like the depiction of the Deluge itself. Other moments of the short are an amalgamation of other unrelated but recurrent influences of mine; For example, I have a soft spot for Japanese animation, Angel's Egg or Evangelion especially.  There's even a little nod to the 90s PBS The Dinosaurs animations in one scene.

Death and destruction comes afoot as corpses rot away, fauna prey upon each other, and the waters of the Great Flood flow in and over the land. The clouds finally converge to form a vortex, and the creatures are set into an utter pandemonium, eventually having them all swallowed up by the sea. Lanzas wanted to capture the series of catastrophes that led up to the Flood, as understood by early paleontologists, and the film has a cyclical nature showing the death and rebirth from the previous cataclysms. 

“This is a world that is at its final moments, already exhausted; everything is rotting and the creatures that keep emerging in it are going mad and increasingly violent, until God finally inflicted them the final punishment.” 

With Antediluvian, Lanzas wanted to use his skills and knowledge of paleoart to make something fun and unique. When taking a relaxed and more artistic approach, Lanzas finds doing his work more enjoyable and entertaining. He says that older depictions and speculative interpretations, such as those featured in the short, can be refreshing, compared to formal, standardized paleoart. He loves formal paleoart, but enjoys making things like these as an opportunity to stand out and explore fresher artistic expressions. 

Seeing the style of early paleoart brought to life in animation puts a new spin on these classics and makes the study of the field itself much more engaging. Lanzas says he has ideas for a variety of projects, some even more ambitious than this piece. He finds value in both standard paleoart and interesting projects like Antediluvian. On why he wanted to make a piece in this style he said, “traditional animation in the last decades has been displaced by CGI in the mainstream, and I miss it. Especially now with AI images flooding the internet, a meticulous short film made by drawn animation is what I want to see more of.” With modern technologies and tools readily available, artists like Lanzas try to have unique projects like these to make their work and voices stand out.

Be sure to check out Mario Lanzas on his YouTube channel and Instagram, and for more on paleoart as a practice, be sure to visit our feature on its history!

Want to read more about paleoart? Check out our longform article here!