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Paleoart (also spelled palaeoart, paleo-art, or paleo art) is any original artistic work that attempts to depict prehistoric life according to scientific evidence. Works of paleoart may be representations of fossil remains or imagined depictions of the living creatures and their ecosystems. While paleoart is typically defined as being scientifically informed, it is often the basis of depictions of prehistoric animals in popular culture, which in turn influences public perception of and fuels interest in these animals. The word paleoart is also used in other informal sense, as a name for prehistoric art, most often cave paintings. Alternative concept of this term is the domain of archeological society.
The term "paleoart"–which is a
portmanteau
A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of words[Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...](_blank)
word for "old", and "art"–was introduced in the late 1980s by
Mark Hallett for art that depicts subjects related to
paleontology
Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossi ...
, but is considered to have originated as a visual tradition in early 1800s England. Older works of possible "proto-paleoart", suggestive of ancient fossil discoveries, may date to as old as the 5th century BCE, though these older works' relation to known fossil material is speculative. Other artworks from the late
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...
of Europe, typically portraying mythical creatures, are more plausibly inspired by fossils of prehistoric large mammals and reptiles that were known from this period.
Paleoart emerged as a distinct genre of art with unambiguous scientific basis around the beginning of the 19th century, dovetailing with the emergence of
paleontology
Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossi ...
as a distinct scientific discipline. These early paleoartists restored fossil material, musculature, life appearance, and habitat of prehistoric animals based on the limited scientific understanding of the day. Paintings and sculptures from the mid-1800s were integral in bringing paleontology to the interest of the general public, such as the landmark
Crystal Palace Dinosaur sculptures displayed in
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
. Paleoart developed in scope and accuracy alongside paleontology, with "classic" paleoart coming on the heels of rapid increase in dinosaur discoveries resulting from the opening of the
American frontier
The American frontier, also known as the Old West or the Wild West, encompasses the geography, history, folklore, and culture associated with the forward wave of United States territorial acquisitions, American expansion in mainland North Amer ...
in the nineteenth century. Paleoartist
Charles R. Knight
Charles Robert Knight (October 21, 1874 – April 15, 1953) was an American wildlife and paleoartist best known for his detailed paintings of dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals. His works have been reproduced in many books and are currently ...
, the first to depict dinosaurs as active animals, dominated the paleoart landscape through the early 1900s.
The modern era of paleoart was brought first by the "Dinosaur Renaissance", a minor scientific revolution beginning in the early 1970s in which dinosaurs came to be understood as active, alert creatures that may have been
warm-blooded
Warm-blooded is an informal term referring to animal species which can maintain a body temperature higher than their environment. In particular, homeothermic species maintain a stable body temperature by regulating metabolic processes. The onl ...
and likely related to
birds
Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweigh ...
. This change of landscape led to a stronger emphasis on accuracy, novelty, and a focus on depicting prehistoric creatures as real animals that resemble living animals in their appearance, behavior and diversity. The "modern" age of paleoart is characterized by this focus on accuracy and diversity in style and depiction, as well as by the rise of
digital art
Digital art refers to any artistic work or practice that uses digital technology as part of the creative or presentation process, or more specifically computational art that uses and engages with digital media.
Since the 1960s, various names ...
and a greater access to scientific resources and to a sprawling scientific and artistic community made possible by the
Internet
The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...
. Today, paleoart is a globally-recognized genre of scientific art, and has been the subject of international contests and awards, galleries, and a variety of books and other merchandise.
Definitions
A chief driver in the inception of paleoart as a distinct form of scientific illustration was the desire of both the public and of paleontologists to visualize the prehistory that fossils represented. Mark Hallett, who coined the term "paleoart" in 1987, stressed the importance of the cooperative effort between artists, paleontologists and other specialists in gaining access to information for generating accurate, realistic restorations of extinct animals and their environments.
Since paleontological knowledge and public perception of the field have changed dramatically since the earliest attempts at reconstructing prehistory, paleoart as a discipline has consequently changed over time as well. This has led to difficulties in creating a shared definition of the term. Given that the drive towards scientific accuracy has always been a salient feature of the discipline, some authors point out the importance of separating true paleoart from "paleoimagery", which is defined as a broader category of paleontology-influenced imagery that may include a variety of cultural and media depictions of prehistoric life in various manifestations, but does not necessarily include scientific accuracy as a recognized goal. One attempt to separate these terms has defined paleoartists as artists who, "create original skeletal reconstructions and/or restorations of prehistoric animals, or restore fossil flora or invertebrates using acceptable and recognized procedures". Others have pointed out that a definition of paleoart must include a degree of subjectivity, where an artist's style, preferences and opinions come into play along with the goal of accuracy. The
Society of Vertebrate Paleontology
The Society of Vertebrate Paleontology (SVP) is a professional organization that was founded in the United States in 1940 to advance the science of vertebrate paleontology around the world.
Mission and Activities
SVP has about 2,300 members inter ...
has offered the definition of paleoart as, "the scientific or naturalistic rendering of paleontological subject matter pertaining to
vertebrate
Vertebrates () comprise all animal taxa within the subphylum Vertebrata () ( chordates with backbones), including all mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish. Vertebrates represent the overwhelming majority of the phylum Chordata, ...
fossils", a definition considered unacceptable by some for its exclusion of non-vertebrate subject matter. Paleoartist
Mark Witton defines paleoart in terms of three essential elements: 1) being bound by scientific data, 2) involving biologically-informed restoration to fill in missing data, and 3) relating to extinct organisms. This definition explicitly rules out technical illustrations of fossil specimens from being considered paleoart, and requires the use of "reasoned extrapolation and informed speculation" to fill in these reconstructive gaps, thereby also explicitly ruling out artworks that actively go against known published data. These might be more accurately considered
paleontologically-inspired art.
In an attempt to establish a common definition of the term, Ansón and colleagues (2015) conducted an empirical survey of the international paleontological community with a questionnaire on various aspects of paleoart. 78% of the surveyed participants stated agreement with the importance of scientific accuracy in paleoart, and 87% of respondents recognized an increase in accuracy of paleoart over time.
Aims and production
The production of paleoart requires by definition substantial reading of research and reference-gathering to ensure scientific credibility at the time of production. Aims of paleoart range from communicating scientific knowledge to evoking emotion through fascination at nature. The artist
James Gurney
James Gurney (born June 14, 1958) is an American artist and author known for his illustrated book series ''Dinotopia'', which is presented in the form of a 19th-century explorer's
journal from an island utopia cohabited by humans and dinosaurs. ...
, known for the
Dinotopia
''Dinotopia'' is a series of illustrated fantasy books, created by author and illustrator James Gurney. It is set in the titular Dinotopia, an isolated island inhabited by shipwrecked humans and Sapience, sapient dinosaurs who have learned to H ...
series of fiction books, has described the interaction between scientists and artists as the artist being the eyes of the scientist, since his illustrations bring shape to the theories; paleoart determines how the public perceives long extinct animals. Apart from the goal of accuracy on its own, the intentions of the paleoartist may be manifold, and include the illustrating of specific scientific hypotheses, suggesting new hypotheses, or anticipating paleontological knowledge through illustration that can be later verified by fossil evidence. Paleoart can even be used as a research methodology in itself, such as in the creation of scale models to estimate weight approximations and size proportions. Paleoart is also frequently used as a tool for public outreach and education, including through the production and sale of paleontology-themed toys, books, movies, and other products.
Scientific principles
Although every artist's process will differ, Witton (2018) recommends a standard set of requirements to produce artwork that fits the definition. A basic understanding of the subject organism's place in time (
geochronology
Geochronology is the science of determining the age of rocks, fossils, and sediments using signatures inherent in the rocks themselves. Absolute geochronology can be accomplished through radioactive isotopes, whereas relative geochronology is pr ...
) and space (
paleobiogeography
Biogeography is the study of the distribution of species and ecosystems in geographic space and through geological time. Organisms and biological communities often vary in a regular fashion along geographic gradients of latitude, elevation, ...
) is necessary for restorations of scenes or environments in paleoart. Skeletal reference—not just the bones of vertebrate animals, but including any fossilized structures of soft tissue–such as
lignified
Lignin is a class of complex organic polymers that form key structural materials in the support tissues of most plants. Lignins are particularly important in the formation of cell walls, especially in wood and bark, because they lend rigidity ...
plant tissue
In biology, tissue is a biological organizational level between cells and a complete organ. A tissue is an ensemble of similar cells and their extracellular matrix from the same origin that together carry out a specific function. Organs are ...
and
coral
Corals are marine invertebrates within the class Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact colonies of many identical individual polyps. Coral species include the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and sec ...
framework—is crucial for understanding the proportions, size and appearance of extinct organisms. Given that many fossil specimens are known from fragmentary material, an understanding of the organisms'
ontogeny
Ontogeny (also ontogenesis) is the origination and development of an organism (both physical and psychological, e.g., moral development), usually from the time of fertilization of the egg to adult. The term can also be used to refer to the stu ...
,
functional morphology
Functional may refer to:
* Movements in architecture:
** Functionalism (architecture)
** Form follows function
* Functional group, combination of atoms within molecules
* Medical conditions without currently visible organic basis:
** Functional s ...
, and
phylogeny
A phylogenetic tree (also phylogeny or evolutionary tree Felsenstein J. (2004). ''Inferring Phylogenies'' Sinauer Associates: Sunderland, MA.) is a branching diagram or a tree showing the evolutionary relationships among various biological spec ...
may be required to create scientifically-rigorous paleoart by filling in restorative gaps parsimoniously.
Several professional paleoartists recommend the consideration of contemporary animals in aiding accurate restorations, especially in cases where crucial details of pose, appearance and behavior are impossible to know from fossil material. For example, most extinct animals' coloration and patterning are unknown from fossil evidence, but these can be plausibly restored in illustration based on known aspects of the animal's environment and behavior, as well as inference based on function such as
thermoregulation
Thermoregulation is the ability of an organism to keep its body temperature within certain boundaries, even when the surrounding temperature is very different. A thermoconforming organism, by contrast, simply adopts the surrounding temperature ...
,
species recognition
Intra-species recognition is the recognition by a member of a species of a conspecific (another member of the same species). In many species, such recognition is necessary for procreation.
Different species may employ different methods, but all ...
, and
camouflage
Camouflage is the use of any combination of materials, coloration, or illumination for concealment, either by making animals or objects hard to see, or by disguising them as something else. Examples include the leopard's spotted coat, the ...
.
Artistic principles
In addition to a scientific understanding, paleoart incorporates a traditional approach to art, the use and development of style, medium, and subject matter that is unique to each artist. The success of a piece of paleoart depends on its strength of composition as much as any other genre of artistry. Command of object placement, color, lighting, and shape can be indispensable to communicating a realistic depiction of prehistoric life. Drawing skills also help form an important basis of effective paleoillustration, including an understanding of perspective, composition, command of a medium, and practice at life drawing. Paleoart is unique in its compositional challenge in that its content must be imagined and inferred, as opposed to directly referenced, and, in many cases, this includes animal behavior and environment. To this end, artists must keep in mind the mood and purpose of a composition in creating an effect piece of paleoart.
Many artists and enthusiasts think of paleoart as having validity as art for its own sake. The incomplete nature of the fossil record, varying interpretations of what material exists, and the inability to observe behavior ensures that the illustration of dinosaurs has a speculative component. Therefore, a variety of factors other than science can influence paleontological illustrators, including the expectations of editors, curators, and commissioners, as well as long-standing assumptions about the nature of dinosaurs that may be repeated through generations of paleoart, regardless of accuracy.
History
"Proto-paleoart" (pre-1800)
While the word "paleoart" is relatively recent, the practice of restoring ancient life based on real fossil remains can be considered to have originated around the same time as paleontology. However, art of extinct animals has existed long before
Henry De la Beche
Sir Henry Thomas De la Beche KCB, FRS (10 February 179613 April 1855) was an English geologist and palaeontologist, the first director of the Geological Survey of Great Britain, who helped pioneer early geological survey methods. He was the f ...
's 1830 painting ''
Duria Antiquior
''Duria Antiquior, a more ancient Dorset'', was the first pictorial representation of a scene of prehistoric life based on evidence from fossil reconstructions, a genre now known as paleoart. The first version was a watercolour painted in 1830 b ...
'', which is sometimes credited as the first true paleontological artwork. These older works include sketches, paintings and detailed anatomical restorations, though the relation of these works to observed fossil material is mostly speculative. For example, a
Corinth
Corinth ( ; el, Κόρινθος, Kórinthos, ) is the successor to an ancient city, and is a former municipality in Corinthia, Peloponnese, which is located in south-central Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform, it has been part o ...
ian vase painted sometime between 560 and 540
BCE
Common Era (CE) and Before the Common Era (BCE) are year notations for the Gregorian calendar (and its predecessor, the Julian calendar), the world's most widely used calendar era. Common Era and Before the Common Era are alternatives to the or ...
is thought by some researchers to bear a depiction of an observed fossil skull. This so-called "Monster of Troy", the beast fought by the
mythological Greek hero
Heracles
Heracles ( ; grc-gre, Ἡρακλῆς, , glory/fame of Hera), born Alcaeus (, ''Alkaios'') or Alcides (, ''Alkeidēs''), was a divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, and the foster son of Amphitryon.By his adoptive ...
, somewhat resembles the skull of the
giraffid
The Giraffidae are a family of ruminant artiodactyl mammals that share a common ancestor with deer and bovids. This family, once a diverse group spread throughout Eurasia and Africa, presently comprises only two extant genera, the giraffe (one or ...
''
Samotherium
''Samotherium'' ("beast of Samos") is an extinct genus of Giraffidae from the Miocene and Pliocene of Eurasia and Africa. ''Samotherium'' had two ossicones on its head, and long legs. The ossicones usually pointed upward, and were curved backwar ...
''. Witton considered that because the painting has significant differences from the skull it is supposedly representing (lack of horns, sharp teeth), it should not necessarily be considered "proto-paleoart". Other scholars have suggested that ancient fossils inspired
Grecian
The Greeks or Hellenes (; el, Έλληνες, ''Éllines'' ) are an ethnic group and nation indigenous to the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea regions, namely Greece, Cyprus, Albania, Italy, Turkey, Egypt, and, to a lesser extent, oth ...
depictions of
griffin
The griffin, griffon, or gryphon (Ancient Greek: , ''gryps''; Classical Latin: ''grȳps'' or ''grȳpus''; Late Latin, Late and Medieval Latin: ''gryphes'', ''grypho'' etc.; Old French: ''griffon'') is a legendary creature with the body, tail ...
s, with the mythical chimera of lion and bird anatomy superficially resembling the beak, horns and quadrupedal body plan of the dinosaur ''
Protoceratops
''Protoceratops'' (; ) is a genus of small protoceratopsid dinosaurs that lived in Asia during the Late Cretaceous, around 75 to 71 million years ago. The genus ''Protoceratops'' includes two species: ''P. andrewsi'' and the larger ''P. hellenik ...
''. Similarly, authors have speculated that the huge, unified nasal opening in the skull of fossil mammoths could have inspired ancient artwork and stories of the one-eyed
cyclops
In Greek mythology and later Roman mythology, the Cyclopes ( ; el, Κύκλωπες, ''Kýklōpes'', "Circle-eyes" or "Round-eyes"; singular Cyclops ; , ''Kýklōps'') are giant one-eyed creatures. Three groups of Cyclopes can be distinguish ...
. However, these ideas have never been adequately substantiated, with existing evidence more parsimonious with established cultural interpretations of these mythical figures.
The earliest definitive works of "proto-paleoart" that unambiguously depict the life appearance of fossil animals come from fifteenth and sixteenth century Europe. One such depiction is Ulrich Vogelsang's statue of a
Lindwurm in
Klagenfurt
Klagenfurt am WörtherseeLandesgesetzblatt 2008 vom 16. Jänner 2008, Stück 1, Nr. 1: ''Gesetz vom 25. Oktober 2007, mit dem die Kärntner Landesverfassung und das Klagenfurter Stadtrecht 1998 geändert werden.'/ref> (; ; sl, Celovec), usually ...
,
Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
that dates to 1590. Writings from the time of its creation specifically identify the skull of ''
Coelodonta antiquitatis'', the woolly rhinoceros, as the basis for the head in the restoration. This skull had been found in a mine or gravel pit near Klagenfurt in 1335, and remains on display today. Despite its poor resemblance of the skull in question, the Lindwurm statue was thought to be almost certainly inspired by the find.
The German textbook ''
Mundus Subterraneus'', authored by scholar
Athanasius Kircher
Athanasius Kircher (2 May 1602 – 27 November 1680) was a German Jesuit scholar and polymath
A polymath ( el, πολυμαθής, , "having learned much"; la, homo universalis, "universal human") is an individual whose knowledge spans ...
in 1678, features a number of illustrations of giant humans and
dragon
A dragon is a reptilian legendary creature that appears in the folklore of many cultures worldwide. Beliefs about dragons vary considerably through regions, but dragons in western cultures since the High Middle Ages have often been depicted as ...
s that may have been informed by fossil finds of the day, many of which came from quarries and caves. Some of these may have been the bones of large
Pleistocene
The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological Epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fina ...
mammals common to these European caves. Others may have been based on far older fossils of
plesiosaur
The Plesiosauria (; Greek: πλησίος, ''plesios'', meaning "near to" and ''sauros'', meaning "lizard") or plesiosaurs are an order or clade of extinct Mesozoic marine reptiles, belonging to the Sauropterygia.
Plesiosaurs first appeared ...
s, which are thought to have informed a unique depiction of a dragon in this book that departs noticeably from the classically slender, serpentine dragon artwork of the era by having a barrel-like body and 'paddle-like' wings. According to some researchers, this dramatic departure from the typical dragon artwork of this time, which is thought to have been informed by the Lindwurm, likely reflects the arrival of a new source of information, such as a speculated discovery of plesiosaur fossils in quarries of the historic
Swabia
Swabia ; german: Schwaben , colloquially ''Schwabenland'' or ''Ländle''; archaic English also Suabia or Svebia is a cultural, historic and linguistic region in southwestern Germany.
The name is ultimately derived from the medieval Duchy of ...
region of
Bavaria
Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...
.
Eighteenth century skeletal reconstructions of the
unicorn
The unicorn is a legendary creature that has been described since antiquity as a beast with a single large, pointed, spiraling horn projecting from its forehead.
In European literature and art, the unicorn has for the last thousand years o ...
are thought to have been inspired by
Ice Age
An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages and gree ...
mammoth
A mammoth is any species of the extinct elephantid genus ''Mammuthus'', one of the many genera that make up the order of trunked mammals called proboscideans. The various species of mammoth were commonly equipped with long, curved tusks and, ...
and rhinoceros bones found in a cave near
Quedlinburg
Quedlinburg () is a town situated just north of the Harz mountains, in the district of Harz in the west of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. As an influential and prosperous trading centre during the early Middle Ages, Quedlinburg became a center of in ...
, Germany in 1663. These artworks are of uncertain origin and may have been created by
Otto von Guericke
Otto von Guericke ( , , ; spelled Gericke until 1666; November 20, 1602 – May 11, 1686 ; November 30, 1602 – May 21, 1686 ) was a German scientist, inventor, and politician. His pioneering scientific work, the development of experimental me ...
, the German naturalist who first described the "unicorn" remains in his writings, or
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
Gottfried Wilhelm (von) Leibniz . ( – 14 November 1716) was a German polymath active as a mathematician, philosopher, scientist and diplomat. He is one of the most prominent figures in both the history of philosophy and the history of mathema ...
, the author who published the image posthumously in 1749. This rendering represents the oldest known illustration of a fossil skeleton.
Early scientific paleoart (1800–1890)
The beginning of the 19th century saw the first paleontological artworks with an unambiguous scientific basis, and this emergence coincided with paleontology being seen as a distinct field of science. The French naturalist and professor
Jean Hermann of
Strasbourg, France
Strasbourg (, , ; german: Straßburg ; gsw, label= Bas Rhin Alsatian, Strossburi , gsw, label=Haut Rhin Alsatian, Strossburig ) is the prefecture and largest city of the Grand Est region of eastern France and the official seat of the Eu ...
, drafted what Witton describes as the "oldest known, incontrovertible" pieces of paleoart in 1800. These sketches, based on the first known fossil skeleton of a pterosaur, depict Hermann's interpretation of the animal as a flying mammal with fur and large external ears. These ink drawings were relatively quick sketches accompanying his notes on the fossil and were likely never intended for publication, and their existence was only recently uncovered from correspondence between the artist and the French anatomist
Baron Georges Cuvier.
Similarly, private sketches of mammoth fossils drafted by
Yakutsk
Yakutsk (russian: Якутск, p=jɪˈkutsk; sah, Дьокуускай, translit=Djokuuskay, ) is the capital city of the Sakha Republic, Russia, located about south of the Arctic Circle. Fueled by the mining industry, Yakutsk has become one of ...
merchant Roman Boltunov in 1805 were likely never intended for scientific publication, but their function—to communicate the life appearance of an animal whose tusks he had found in Siberia and was hoping to sell—nevertheless establishes it one of the first examples of paleoart by today's definition. Boltunov's sketches of the animal, which depicted it without a
trunk and
boar
The wild boar (''Sus scrofa''), also known as the wild swine, common wild pig, Eurasian wild pig, or simply wild pig, is a suid native to much of Eurasia and North Africa, and has been introduced to the Americas and Oceania. The species is no ...
-like, raised enough scientific interest in the specimen that the drawings were later sent to
St. Petersburg
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
and eventually led to excavation and study of the rest of the specimen.
Cuvier went on to produce skeletal restorations of extinct mammals of his own. Some of these included restorations with musculature layered atop them, which in the early 1820s could be considered the earliest examples of illustrations of animal tissue built up over fossil skeletons. As huge and detailed fossil restorations were at this point appearing in the same publications as these modest attempts at soft tissue restoration, historians have speculated whether this reflected shame and lack of interest in paleoart as being too speculative to have scientific value at the time. One notable deviation from the Cuvier-like approach is seen in a cartoon drawn by geologist
William Conybeare in 1822. This cartoon depicts paleontologist
William Buckland
William Buckland Doctor of Divinity, DD, Royal Society, FRS (12 March 1784 – 14 August 1856) was an English theologian who became Dean of Westminster. He was also a geologist and paleontology, palaeontologist.
Buckland wrote the first full ...
entering the famous British
Kirkdale Cave
Kirkdale Cave is a cave and fossil site located in Kirkdale near Kirkbymoorside in the Vale of Pickering, North Yorkshire, England. The cave was discovered by workmen in 1821, and was found to contain fossilized bones of a variety of mammals ...
, known for its Ice Age mammal remains, amidst a scene of fossil
hyena
Hyenas, or hyaenas (from Ancient Greek , ), are feliform carnivoran mammals of the family Hyaenidae . With only four extant species (each in its own genus), it is the fifth-smallest family in the Carnivora and one of the smallest in the clas ...
s restored in the flesh in the ancient cave interior, the first known artwork depicting an extinct animal restored in a rendition of an ancient environment. A similar step forward depicts a dragon-like animal meant to represent the pterosaur ''
Dimorphodon
''Dimorphodon'' was a genus of medium-sized pterosaur from the early Jurassic Period. It was named by paleontologist Richard Owen in 1859. ''Dimorphodon'' means "two-form tooth", derived from the Greek (') meaning "two", (') meaning "shape" an ...
'' flying over a coastline by George Howman; this 1829 watercolor painting was a fanciful piece that, albeit being not particularly scientific, was another very early attempt at restoring a fossil animal in a suitable habitat.
In 1830, the first "fully realized" paleoart scene, depicting prehistoric animals in a realistic geological setting, was painted by British paleontologist
Henry De la Beche
Sir Henry Thomas De la Beche KCB, FRS (10 February 179613 April 1855) was an English geologist and palaeontologist, the first director of the Geological Survey of Great Britain, who helped pioneer early geological survey methods. He was the f ...
. Dubbed ''Duria Antiquior — A more Ancient Dorset'', this watercolor painting represents a scene from the
Early Jurassic
The Early Jurassic Epoch (geology), Epoch (in chronostratigraphy corresponding to the Lower Jurassic series (stratigraphy), Series) is the earliest of three epochs of the Jurassic Period. The Early Jurassic starts immediately after the Triassic-J ...
of
Dorset
Dorset ( ; archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the unitary authority areas of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole and Dorset (unitary authority), Dors ...
, a fossil-rich region of the British Isles. This painting, based on fossil discoveries along the coast of Dorset by paleontologist
Mary Anning
Mary Anning (21 May 1799 – 9 March 1847) was an English fossil collector, dealer, and palaeontologist who became known around the world for the discoveries she made in Jurassic marine fossil beds in the cliffs along the English Channel ...
, showcased realistic aspects of fossil animal appearance, behavior, and environment at a level of detail, realism and accuracy that was among the first of its kind. This watercolor, an early illustration of
paleoecology
Paleoecology (also spelled palaeoecology) is the study of interactions between organisms and/or interactions between organisms and their environments across geologic timescales. As a discipline, paleoecology interacts with, depends on and informs ...
, shows
plesiosaur
The Plesiosauria (; Greek: πλησίος, ''plesios'', meaning "near to" and ''sauros'', meaning "lizard") or plesiosaurs are an order or clade of extinct Mesozoic marine reptiles, belonging to the Sauropterygia.
Plesiosaurs first appeared ...
s and
ichthyosaur
Ichthyosaurs (Ancient Greek for "fish lizard" – and ) are large extinct marine reptiles. Ichthyosaurs belong to the order known as Ichthyosauria or Ichthyopterygia ('fish flippers' – a designation introduced by Sir Richard Owen in 1842, altho ...
s swimming and foraging in a natural setting, and includes depictions of behavior of these marine reptiles that, while unknown, were inferences made by De la Beche based on the behavior of living animals. For example, one ichthyosaur is painted with its mouth open about to swallow the fish head-first, just as a predatory fish would swallow another. Several of these animals are also depicted defecating, a theme that emerges in other works by De la Beche. For example, his 1829 lithograph called ''A
Coprolitic Vision'', perhaps inspired by Conybeare's Kirkdale Cave cartoon, again pokes fun at William Buckland by placing him at the mouth of a cave surrounded by defecating prehistoric animals. Several authors have remarked on De la Beche's apparent interest in fossilized feces, speculating that even the shape of the cave in this cartoon is reminiscent of the interior of an enormous digestive tract. In any case, ''Duria Antiquior'' inspired many subsequent derivatives, one of which was produced by Nicholas Christian Hohe in 1831 titled ''Jura Formation''. This piece, published by German paleontologist
Georg August Goldfuss
Georg August Goldfuss (Goldfuß, 18 April 1782 – 2 October 1848) was a German palaeontologist, zoologist and botanist.
Goldfuss was born at Thurnau near Bayreuth. He was educated at Erlangen, where he graduated PhD in 1804 and became profes ...
, was the first full paleoart scene to enter scientific publication, and was likely an introduction to other academics of the time to the potential of paleoart. Goldfuss was the first to describe fur-like integument on a pterosaur, which was restored in his commissioned 1831 illustration based on his observation of the
holotype
A holotype is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism, known to have been used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of several ...
specimen of ''
Scaphognathus
''Scaphognathus'' was a pterosaur that lived around Germany during the Late Jurassic. It had a wingspan of 0.9 m (3 ft).
Naming
The first known ''Scaphognathus'' specimen was described in 1831 by August Goldfuss who mistook the taill ...
''. This observation, which was rejected by scientists such as
Hermann von Meyer
Christian Erich Hermann von Meyer (3 September 1801 – 2 April 1869), known as Hermann von Meyer, was a German palaeontologist. He was awarded the 1858 Wollaston medal by the Geological Society of London.
Life
He was born at Frankfurt am Ma ...
, was later vindicated with certainty by 21st-century imaging technology, such as
reflectance transformation imaging, used on this specimen.
The role of art in disseminating paleontological knowledge took on a new salience as dinosaur illustration advanced alongside dinosaur paleontology in the mid-1800s. With only fragmentary fossil remains known at the time the term "dinosaur" was coined by Sir
Richard Owen
Sir Richard Owen (20 July 1804 – 18 December 1892) was an English biologist, comparative anatomist and paleontologist. Owen is generally considered to have been an outstanding naturalist with a remarkable gift for interpreting fossils.
Owe ...
in 1841, the question of life appearance of dinosaurs captured the interest of scientist and public alike. Because of the newness and the limitations of the fossil evidence available at the time, artists and scientists had no frame of reference to draw upon in understanding what dinosaurs looked like in life. For this reason, depictions of dinosaurs at the time were heavily based on living animals such as frogs, lizards, and kangaroos. One of the most famous examples, ''
Iguanodon
''Iguanodon'' ( ; meaning 'iguana-tooth'), named in 1825, is a genus of iguanodontian dinosaur. While many species have been classified in the genus ''Iguanodon'', dating from the late Jurassic Period to the early Cretaceous Period of Asia, Eu ...
'', was depicted as a resembling a huge
iguana
''Iguana'' (, ) is a genus of herbivorous lizards that are native to tropical areas of Mexico, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean. The genus was first described in 1768 by Austrian naturalist Josephus Nicolaus Laurenti in his bo ...
because the only known fossils of the dinosaur—the jaws and teeth—were thought to resemble those of the living lizard. With Owen's help,
Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins
Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins (8 February 1807 – 27 January 1894) was an English sculptor and natural history artist renowned for his work on the life-size models of dinosaurs in the Crystal Palace Park in south London. The models, accurately ...
created the first life-size sculptures depicting dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals as he thought they may have appeared; he is considered by some to be the first significant artist to apply his skills to the field of dinosaur paleontology. Some of these models were initially created for the
Great Exhibition of 1851
The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, also known as the Great Exhibition or the Crystal Palace Exhibition (in reference to the temporary structure in which it was held), was an international exhibition which took pl ...
, but 33 were eventually produced when
the Crystal Palace
The Crystal Palace was a cast iron and plate glass structure, originally built in Hyde Park, London, Hyde Park, London, to house the Great Exhibition of 1851. The exhibition took place from 1 May to 15 October 1851, and more than 14,000 exhibit ...
was relocated to
Sydenham Sydenham may refer to:
Places Australia
* Sydenham, New South Wales, a suburb of Sydney
** Sydenham railway station, Sydney
* Sydenham, Victoria, a suburb of Melbourne
** Sydenham railway line, the name of the Sunbury railway line, Melbourne ...
, in South London. Owen famously hosted a dinner for 21 prominent men of science inside the hollow concrete ''Iguanodon'' on New Year's Eve 1853. However, in 1849, a few years before his death in 1852,
Gideon Mantell
Gideon Algernon Mantell MRCS FRS (3 February 1790 – 10 November 1852) was a British obstetrician, geologist and palaeontologist. His attempts to reconstruct the structure and life of ''Iguanodon'' began the scientific study of dinosaurs: in ...
had realized that ''Iguanodon'', of which he was the discoverer, was not a heavy,
pachyderm-like animal, as Owen was putting forward, but had slender forelimbs; his death left him unable to participate in the creation of the
Crystal Palace dinosaur sculptures, and so Owen's vision of dinosaurs became that seen by the public. He had nearly two dozen life-sized
sculpture
Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...
s of various prehistoric animals built out of
concrete
Concrete is a composite material composed of fine and coarse aggregate bonded together with a fluid cement (cement paste) that hardens (cures) over time. Concrete is the second-most-used substance in the world after water, and is the most wi ...
sculpted over a
steel
Steel is an alloy made up of iron with added carbon to improve its strength and fracture resistance compared to other forms of iron. Many other elements may be present or added. Stainless steels that are corrosion- and oxidation-resistant ty ...
and
brick
A brick is a type of block used to build walls, pavements and other elements in masonry construction. Properly, the term ''brick'' denotes a block composed of dried clay, but is now also used informally to denote other chemically cured cons ...
framework; two ''Iguanodon'', one standing and one resting on its belly, were included. The dinosaurs remain in place in the park, but their depictions are now outdated as a consequence both of paleontological progress and of Owen's own misconceptions.
The Crystal Palace models, despite their inaccuracy by today's standards, were a landmark in the advancement of paleoart as not only a serious academic undertaking, but also one that can capture the interest of the general public. The Crystal Palace dinosaur models were the first works of paleoart to be merchandised as postcards, guide books, and replicas to the general public. In the latter half of the 1800s, this major shift could be seen in other developments taking place in academic books and paintings featuring scientific restorations of prehistoric life. For example, a book by French scientist
Louis Figuier
Louis Figuier (15 February 1819 – 8 November 1894) was a French scientist and writer. He was the nephew of Pierre-Oscar Figuier and became Professor of chemistry at L'Ecole de pharmacie of Montpellier. Louis Figuier was married to French w ...
titled ''La Terre Avant le Deluge'', published in 1863, was the first to feature a series of works of paleoart documenting life through time. Illustrated by French painter
Édouard Riou
Édouard Riou (; 2 December 1833 – 27 January 1900) was a French illustrator who illustrated six novels by Jules Verne, as well as several other well-known works.
Life
Riou was born in 1833 in Saint-Servan, Ille-et-Vilaine, and studied u ...
, this book featured iconic scenes of dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals based on Owen's constructions, and would establish a template for academic books featuring artworks of prehistoric life through time for years to come.
"Classic" paleoart (1890–1970)
As the
western frontier
The American frontier, also known as the Old West or the Wild West, encompasses the geography, history, folklore, and culture associated with the forward wave of American expansion in mainland North America that began with European colonial ...
was further opened up in the latter half of the nineteenth century, the rapidly increasing pace of dinosaur discoveries in the bone-rich badlands of the
American Midwest
The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of the United States. I ...
and the Canadian wilderness brought with it a renewed interest in artistic reconstructions of paleontological findings. This "classic" period saw the emergence of
Charles R. Knight
Charles Robert Knight (October 21, 1874 – April 15, 1953) was an American wildlife and paleoartist best known for his detailed paintings of dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals. His works have been reproduced in many books and are currently ...
,
Rudolph Zallinger, and
Zdeněk Burian
Zdeněk Michael František Burian (11 February 1905 in Kopřivnice, Moravia, Austria-Hungary – 1 July 1981 in Prague, Czechoslovakia) was a Czech painter, book illustrator and palaeoartist whose work played a central role in the development of p ...
as the three most prominent exponents of paleoart. During this time, dinosaurs were popularly reconstructed as tail-dragging, cold-blooded, sluggish "Great Reptiles" that became a byword for evolutionary failure in the minds of the public.
Charles Knight is generally considered one of the key figures in paleoart during this time. His birth three years after
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended fr ...
's publication of the influential ''
Descent of Man
''The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex'' is a book by English naturalist Charles Darwin, first published in 1871, which applies evolutionary theory to human evolution, and details his theory of sexual selection, a form of biolo ...
'', along with the "Bone Wars" between rival American paleontologists
Edward Drinker Cope
Edward Drinker Cope (July 28, 1840 – April 12, 1897) was an American zoologist, paleontologist, comparative anatomist, herpetologist, and ichthyologist. Born to a wealthy Quaker family, Cope distinguished himself as a child prodigy interested ...
and
Othniel Marsh
Othniel Charles Marsh (October 29, 1831 – March 18, 1899) was an American professor of Paleontology in Yale College and President of the National Academy of Sciences. He was one of the preeminent scientists in the field of paleontology. Among h ...
raging during his childhood, had poised Knight for rich early experiences in developing an interest in reconstructing prehistoric animals. As an avid wildlife artist who disdained drawing from mounts or photographs, instead preferring to draw from life, Knight grew up drawing living animals, but turned toward prehistoric animals against the backdrop of rapidly-expanding paleontological discoveries and the public energy that accompanied the sensationalist coverage of these discoveries around the turn of the 20th century. Knight's foray into paleoart can be traced to a commission ordered by Dr. Jacob Wortman in 1894 of a painting of a prehistoric
pig
The pig (''Sus domesticus''), often called swine, hog, or domestic pig when distinguishing from other members of the genus '' Sus'', is an omnivorous, domesticated, even-toed, hoofed mammal. It is variously considered a subspecies of ''Sus ...
, ''
Elotherium
''Entelodon'' (meaning "complete teeth", from Ancient Greek ''entelēs'' "complete" and ''odōn'' "tooth", referring to its "complete" eutherian dentition), is an extinct genus of entelodont artiodactyl endemic to Eurasia. Fossils of species a ...
'', to accompany its fossil display at the
American Museum of Natural History
The American Museum of Natural History (abbreviated as AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. In Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 26 inter ...
. Knight, who had always preferred to draw animals from life, applied his knowledge of modern pig anatomy to the painting, which so thrilled Wortman that the museum then commissioned Knight to paint a series of
watercolor
Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (British English; see spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin ''aqua'' "water"), is a painting method”Watercolor may be as old as art itself, going back to t ...
s of various fossils on display.
Throughout the 1920s, '30s and '40s, Knight went on produce drawings, paintings and murals of dinosaurs, early man, and extinct mammals for the
American Museum of Natural History
The American Museum of Natural History (abbreviated as AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. In Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 26 inter ...
, where he was mentored by
Henry Fairfield Osborn
Henry Fairfield Osborn, Sr. (August 8, 1857 – November 6, 1935) was an American paleontologist, geologist and eugenics advocate. He was the president of the American Museum of Natural History for 25 years and a cofounder of the American Euge ...
, and Chicago's
Field Museum, as well as for ''
National Geographic
''National Geographic'' (formerly the ''National Geographic Magazine'', sometimes branded as NAT GEO) is a popular American monthly magazine published by National Geographic Partners. Known for its photojournalism, it is one of the most widely ...
'' and many other major magazines of the time, culminating in his last major mural for the
Everhart Museum
The Everhart Museum of Natural History, Science & Art is a non-profit art and natural history museum located in Nay Aug Park in Scranton, Pennsylvania, United States. It was founded in 1908 by Dr. Isaiah Fawkes Everhart, a local medical doctor ...
of Scranton, Pennsylvania, in 1951. Biologist
Stephen Jay Gould
Stephen Jay Gould (; September 10, 1941 – May 20, 2002) was an American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science. He was one of the most influential and widely read authors of popular science of his generation. Gould sp ...
later remarked on the depth and breadth of influence that Knight's paleoart had on shaping public perception of extinct animals, even without having published original research in the field. Gould described Knight's contribution to scientific understanding in his 1989 book ''
Wonderful Life'': "Not since the Lord himself showed his stuff to Ezekiel in the valley of dry bones had anyone shown such grace and skill in the reconstruction of animals from disarticulated skeletons. Charles R. Knight, the most celebrated of artists in the reanimation of fossils, painted all the canonical figures of dinosaurs that fire our fear and imagination to this day". One of Knight's most famous pieces was his ''Leaping Laelaps'', which he produced for the American Museum of Natural History in 1897. This painting was one of the few works of paleoart produced before 1960 to depict dinosaurs as active, fast-moving creatures, anticipating the next era of paleontological artworks informed by the
Dinosaur Renaissance.
Knight's illustrations also had a large and long-lasting influence on the depiction of prehistoric animals in popular culture. The earliest depictions of dinosaurs in movies, such as the 1933 ''
King Kong
King Kong is a fictional giant monster resembling a gorilla, who has appeared in various media since 1933. He has been dubbed The Eighth Wonder of the World, a phrase commonly used within the franchise. His first appearance was in the novelizat ...
'' film and the 1925 production of ''
The Lost World
The lost world is a subgenre of the fantasy or science fiction genres that involves the discovery of an unknown Earth civilization. It began as a subgenre of the late- Victorian adventure romance and remains popular into the 21st century.
The g ...
'', based on the
Arthur Conan Doyle
Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was a British writer and physician. He created the character Sherlock Holmes in 1887 for ''A Study in Scarlet'', the first of four novels and fifty-six short stories about Ho ...
novel
A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itsel ...
of the same name, relied heavily on Knight's dinosaur paintings to produce suitable dinosaur models that were realistic for the time. The special effects artist
Ray Harryhausen
Raymond Frederick Harryhausen (June 29, 1920 – May 7, 2013) was an American-British animator and special effects creator who created a form of stop motion model animation known as "Dynamation". His works include the animation for '' Might ...
would continue basing his movie dinosaurs on Knight illustrations up through the sixties, including for films such as the 1966 ''
One Million Years B.C.
''One Million Years B.C.'' is a 1966 British adventure fantasy film directed by Don Chaffey. The film was produced by Hammer Film Productions and Seven Arts, and is a remake of the 1940 American fantasy film ''One Million B.C.''. The film star ...
'' and the 1969 ''
Valley of Gwangi''.
Rudolph Zallinger and Zdeněk Burian both went on to influence the state of dinosaur art while Knight's career began to wind down. Zallinger, a
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...
-born American painter, began working for the
Yale Peabody Museum
The Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale University is among the oldest, largest, and most prolific university List of natural history museums, natural history museums in the world. It was founded by the philanthropist George Peabody in 1866 ...
illustrating
marine algae
Marine primary production is the chemical synthesis in the ocean of organic compounds from atmospheric or dissolved carbon dioxide. It principally occurs through the process of photosynthesis, which uses light as its source of energy, but it al ...
around the time that the United States entered
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. He began his most iconic piece of paleoart, a five-year mural project for the Yale Peabody Museum, in 1942. This mural, titled ''
The Age of Reptiles'', was completed in 1947 and became representative of the modern consensus of dinosaur biology at that time. He later completed a second great mural for the Peabody, ''The Age of Mammals'', which grew out of a painting published in ''
Life
Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for growth, reaction to stimuli, metabolism, energ ...
'' magazine in 1953.
Zdeněk Burian, working from his native
Czechoslovakia
, rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי,
, common_name = Czechoslovakia
, life_span = 1918–19391945–1992
, p1 = Austria-Hungary
, image_p1 ...
, followed the school of Knight and Zallinger, entering modern, biologically-informed paleoart scene via his extensive series of prehistoric life illustrations. Burian entered the world of prehistoric illustration in the early 1930s with illustrations for fictional books set in various prehistoric times by amateur
archaeologist
Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...
Eduard Štorch. These illustrations brought him to the attention of paleontologist
Josef Augusta, with whom Burian worked in cooperation from 1935 until Augusta's death in 1968. This collaboration led ultimately to the launching of Burian's career in paleoart.
Some authors have remarked on a darker, more sinister feel to his paleoart than that of his contemporaries, speculating that this style was informed by Burian's experience producing artwork in his native Czechoslovakia during World War II and, afterwards, under Soviet control. His depictions of suffering, death, and the harsh realities of survival that emerged as themes in his paleoart were unique at the time. Original Burian paintings are on exhibit at the
Dvůr Králové Zoo, the
National Museum (Prague)
The National Museum (NM) (Czech: ''Národní muzeum'') is a Czech museum institution intended to systematically establish, prepare, and publicly exhibit natural scientific and historical collections. It was founded in 1818 by Kašpar Maria Štern ...
and at the Anthropos Museum in
Brno
Brno ( , ; german: Brünn ) is a city in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic. Located at the confluence of the Svitava and Svratka rivers, Brno has about 380,000 inhabitants, making it the second-largest city in the Czech Republic ...
. In 2017, the first valid Czech dinosaur was named ''
Burianosaurus augustai'' in honor of both Burian and Josef Augusta.
While Charles Knight, Rudolph Zallinger and Zdeněk Burian dominated the landscape of "classic" scientific paleoart in the first half of the 20th century, they were far from the only paleoartists working at this time. German landscape painter
Heinrich Harder
Heinrich Harder (2 June 1858 – 5 February 1935) was a German artist and an art professor at the Prussian Academy of Arts in Berlin best known for his depictions of extinct animals.
Life
Heinrich Harder was born in Putzar, Pomerania, the son ...
was illustrating natural history articles, including a series accompanying articles by science writer
Wilhelm Bölsche
Wilhelm Bölsche (2 January 1861 – 31 August 1939) was a German author, editor and publicist. He was among the early promoters of nature conservation and committed to popularizing science.
Life
Bölsche was born in Cologne on 2 January 1861 ...
on earth history for ''
Die Gartenlaube
''Die Gartenlaube – Illustriertes Familienblatt'' (; ) was the first successful mass-circulation German newspaper and a forerunner of all modern magazines.Sylvia Palatschek: ''Popular Historiographies in the 19th and 20th Centuries'' (Oxford: ...
'', a weekly magazine, in 1906 and 1908. He also worked with Bölsche to illustrate 60 dinosaur and other prehistoric animal collecting cards for the Reichardt Cocoa Company, titled "Tiere der Urwelt" ("Animals of the Prehistoric World"). One of Harder's contemporaries, Danish paleontologist
Gerhard Heilmann
Gerhard Heilmann (later sometimes spelt "Heilman") (25 June 1859 – 26 March 1946) was a Danish artist and paleontologist who created artistic depictions of ''Archaeopteryx'', '' Proavis'' and other early bird relatives apart from writing the 19 ...
, produced a large number of sketches and ink drawings related to ''
Archaeopteryx
''Archaeopteryx'' (; ), sometimes referred to by its German name, "" ( ''Primeval Bird''), is a genus of bird-like dinosaurs. The name derives from the ancient Greek (''archaīos''), meaning "ancient", and (''ptéryx''), meaning "feather" ...
'' and
avian evolution
Avian may refer to:
*Birds or Aves, winged animals
* Avian (given name) (russian: Авиа́н, link=no), a male forename
Aviation
*Avro Avian, a series of light aircraft made by Avro in the 1920s and 1930s
*Avian Limited, a hang glider manufactur ...
, culminating in his lavishly illustrated and controversial treatise ''
The Origin of Birds'', published in 1926.
The Dinosaur Renaissance (1970–2010)
This classic depiction of dinosaurs remained the status quo until the 1960s, when a minor scientific revolution began changing the perceptions of dinosaurs as tail-dragging, sluggish animals to active, alert creatures. This reformation took place following the 1964 discovery of ''
Deinonychus
''Deinonychus'' ( ; ) is a genus of dromaeosaurid theropod dinosaur with one described species, ''Deinonychus antirrhopus''. This species, which could grow up to long, lived during the early Cretaceous Period, about 115–108 million ye ...
'' by paleontologist
John Ostrom
John Harold Ostrom (February 18, 1928 – July 16, 2005) was an American paleontologist who revolutionized modern understanding of dinosaurs in the 1960s.
As first proposed by Thomas Henry Huxley in the 1860s, Ostrom showed that dinosaurs were ...
. Ostrom's description of this nearly-complete birdlike dinosaur, published in 1969, challenged the presupposition of dinosaurs as cold-blooded, slow-moving reptiles, instead finding that many of these animals were likely reminiscent of birds, not just in evolutionary history and classification but in appearance and behavior as well. This idea had been advanced before, most notably by 1800s English biologist
Thomas Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley (4 May 1825 – 29 June 1895) was an English biologist and anthropologist specialising in comparative anatomy. He has become known as "Darwin's Bulldog" for his advocacy of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.
The stor ...
about the link between dinosaurs, modern birds, and the then-newly discovered ''
Archaeopteryx
''Archaeopteryx'' (; ), sometimes referred to by its German name, "" ( ''Primeval Bird''), is a genus of bird-like dinosaurs. The name derives from the ancient Greek (''archaīos''), meaning "ancient", and (''ptéryx''), meaning "feather" ...
''. With the discovery and description of ''Deinonychus'', however, Ostrom had laid out the strongest evidence yet of the close link between birds and dinosaurs. The artistic reconstructions of ''Deinonychus'' by his student,
Robert Bakker
Robert Thomas Bakker (born March 24, 1945) is an American paleontologist who helped reshape modern theories about dinosaurs, particularly by adding support to the theory that some dinosaurs were endothermic (warm-blooded). Along with his mentor J ...
, remain iconic of what came to be known as the Dinosaur Renaissance.
Bakker's influence during this period on then-fledgling paleoartists, such as
Gregory S. Paul
Gregory Scott Paul (born December 24, 1954) is an American freelance researcher, author and illustrator who works in paleontology, and more recently has examined sociology and theology. He is best known for his work and research on theropod dino ...
, as well as on public consciousness brought about a paradigm shift in how dinosaurs were perceived by artist, scientist and layman alike. The science and public understanding of dinosaur biology became charged by Bakker's innovative and often controversial ideas and portrayals, including the idea that dinosaurs were in fact
warm-blooded
Warm-blooded is an informal term referring to animal species which can maintain a body temperature higher than their environment. In particular, homeothermic species maintain a stable body temperature by regulating metabolic processes. The onl ...
animals like mammals and birds. Bakker's drawings of ''Deinonychus'' and other dinosaurs depicted the animals leaping, running, and charging, and his novel artistic output was accompanied by his writings on paleobiology, with his influential and well-known book ''
The Dinosaur Heresies
''The Dinosaur Heresies: New Theories Unlocking the Mystery of the Dinosaurs and Their Extinction'' is a 1986 book written by Robert T. Bakker.
The book sums up the extant evidence that indicates that dinosaurs, rather than being Ectotherm, cold ...
'', published in 1986, now regarded as a classic. American scientist-artist Gregory Paul, working originally as Bakker's student in the 1970s, became one of the leading illustrators of prehistoric reptiles in the 1980s and has been described by some authors as the paleoartist who may "define modern paleoart more than any other". Paul is notable for his 'rigorous' approach to paleoartistic restorations, including his multi-view skeletal reconstructions, evidence-driven studies of musculature and soft tissue, and his attention to biomechanics to ensure realistic poses and gaits of his artistic subjects. The artistic innovation that Paul brought to the field of paleoart is to prioritize detail over atmosphere, leading to some criticism of his work as being 'flat' or lacking in depth, but also to imbue dinosaur depictions with a greater variety of naturalistic coloration and patterns, whereas most dinosaur coloration in artworks beforehand had been fairly drab and uniform.
Ostrom, Bakker and Paul changed the landscape of depictions of prehistoric animals in science and popular culture alike throughout the 1970s, '80s and '90s. Their influence affected the presentation of museum displays throughout the world and eventually found its way into popular culture, with the climax of this period perhaps best marked by the 1990 novel and 1993 film ''
Jurassic Park
''Jurassic Park'', later also referred to as ''Jurassic World'', is an American science fiction media franchise created by Michael Crichton and centered on a disastrous attempt to create a theme park of cloned dinosaurs. It began in 1990 when ...
''. Paul in particular helped set the stage for the next wave of paleoaristry, and from the 1970s to the end of the twentieth century, paleoartists working from the 'rigorous' approach included
Douglas Henderson, Mark Hallett,
Michael Skrepnick,
William Stout
William Stout (born September 18, 1949) is an American fantasy artist and illustrator with a specialization in paleoart, paleontological art. His paintings have been shown in over seventy exhibitions, including twelve one-man shows. He has worke ...
,
Ely Kish,
Luis Rey,
John Gurche
John Gurche is an American artist known for his paintings, sculptures, and sketches of prehistoric life, especially dinosaurs and early humans. Gurche is currently an Artist in Residence at the Museum of the Earth in Ithaca, New York.
Gurche st ...
, Bob Walters, and others, including an expanding body of sculpting work led by artists such as
Brian Cooley,
Stephen Czerkas, and Dave Thomas. Many of these artists developed unique and lucrative stylistic niches without sacrificing their rigorous approach, such as Douglas Henderson's detailed and atmospheric landscapes, and Luis Rey's brightly-colored, "extreme" depictions. The "Renaissance" movement so revolutionized paleoart that even the last works of Burian, a master of the "classic" age, were thought to be influenced by the newfangled preference for active, dynamic, exciting depictions of dinosaurs.
This movement was working in parallel with great strides in the scientific progress of vertebrate paleontology that were occurring during this time. Precision in anatomy and artistic reconstruction was aided by an increasingly detailed and sophisticated understanding of these extinct animals through new discoveries and interpretations that pushed paleoart into more objective territory with respect to accuracy. For example, the feathered dinosaur revolution, facilitated by unprecedented discoveries in the
Liaoning
Liaoning () is a coastal province in Northeast China that is the smallest, southernmost, and most populous province in the region. With its capital at Shenyang, it is located on the northern shore of the Yellow Sea, and is the northernmost ...
province of northern
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
in the late 1990s and early 2000s, was perhaps foreseen by artist Sarah Landry, who drew the first
feathered dinosaur
A feathered dinosaur is any species of dinosaur possessing feathers. While this includes all species of birds, there is a hypothesis that many, if not all non-avian dinosaur species also possessed feathers in some shape or form.
It has been su ...
for Bakker's seminal ''Scientific American'' article in 1975. One of the first major shows of dinosaur art was published in 1986 by Sylvia Czerkas, along with the accompanying volume ''Dinosaurs Past and Present''.
Modern (and post-modern) paleoart (2010–present)
![Deinonychus-antirrhopus_jconway](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/27/Deinonychus-antirrhopus_jconway.jpg)
Although various authors are in agreement about the events that caused the beginning of the Dinosaur Renaissance, the transition to the modern age of paleoart has been more gradual, with differing attitudes about what typifies the demarcation. Gregory Paul's high-fidelity
archosaur
Archosauria () is a clade of diapsids, with birds and crocodilians as the only living representatives. Archosaurs are broadly classified as reptiles, in the cladistic sense of the term which includes birds. Extinct archosaurs include non-avian d ...
skeletal reconstructions provided a basis for ushering in the modern age of paleoart, which is perhaps best characterized by adding speculative flair to the rigorous, anatomically-conscious approach popularized by the Dinosaur Renaissance. Novel advances in paleontology, such as new feathered dinosaur discoveries and the various
pigmentation
A pigment is a colored material that is completely or nearly insoluble in water. In contrast, dyes are typically soluble, at least at some stage in their use. Generally dyes are often organic compounds whereas pigments are often inorganic compo ...
studies of dinosaur integument that began around 2010, have become representative of paleoart after the turn of the millennium. Witton (2018) characterizes the modern movement with the rise of
digital art
Digital art refers to any artistic work or practice that uses digital technology as part of the creative or presentation process, or more specifically computational art that uses and engages with digital media.
Since the 1960s, various names ...
, as well as the establishment of an internet community that would enabled paleoartists and enthusiasts to network, share digitized and
open access
Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which research outputs are distributed online, free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 definition), or libre op ...
scientific resources, and to build a global community that was unprecedented until the first decade of the twenty-first century. The continuum of work leading from the themes and advances that began in the Dinosaur Renaissance to the production of modern paleoart is showcased in several books that were published post-2010, such as
Steve White's ''Dinosaur Art: The World's Greatest Paleoart'' (2012) and its "sequel", ''Dinosaur Art II: The Cutting Edge of Paleoart'' (2017).
![Arambourgiania_philadelphiae](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8e/Arambourgiania_philadelphiae.png)
Although this transition was gradual, this period has been described as a salient cultural phenomenon that came about largely as a consequence of this increased connectivity and access to paleoart brought by the digital age. The saturation of paleoart with established and overused heuristics, many of which had been established by paleoartists working in the height of the revolution that came before, led to an increased awareness and criticism of the repetitive and unimaginative use of ideas that were, by the first decade of the 21st century, lacking in novelty. This observation led to a movement characterized by the idea that prehistoric animals could be shown in artworks engaging in a greater range of behaviors, habitats, styles, compositions, and interpretations of life appearance than had been imagined in paleoart up to that point, but without violating the principles of anatomical and scientific rigor that had been established by the paleoart revolution that came before. Additionally, the traditional heuristics used in paleoart up to this point were shown to produce illustrations of modern animals that failed to depict these accurately. These ideas were formalized in a 2012 book by paleoartists
John Conway
John Horton Conway (26 December 1937 – 11 April 2020) was an English mathematician active in the theory of finite groups, knot theory, number theory, combinatorial game theory and coding theory. He also made contributions to many branches ...
and Nemo Ramjet (also known as
C.M Kosemen), along with paleontologist
Darren Naish
Darren William Naish is a British vertebrate palaeontologist, author and science communicator.
As a researcher, he is best known for his work describing and reevaluating dinosaurs and other Mesozoic reptiles, including ''Eotyrannus'', ''Xenopos ...
, called ''
All Yesterdays: Unique and Speculative Views of Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Animals''. This book and its associated minor paradigm shift, commonly referred to as the "All Yesterdays" movement, argued that it was better to employ scientifically rigorous "reasoned speculation" to produce a greater range of speculative, but plausible, reconstructions of prehistoric animals. Conway and colleagues argued that the range of appearances and behaviors depicted in paleoart had only managed to capture a very narrow range of what's plausible, based on the limited data available, and that artistic approaches to these depictions had become "overly steeped in tradition". For example, ''All Yesterdays'' examines the small, four-winged
dromaeosaur
Dromaeosauridae () is a family of feathered theropod dinosaurs. They were generally small to medium-sized feathered carnivores that flourished in the Cretaceous Period. The name Dromaeosauridae means 'running lizards', from Greek ('), meaning ...
''
Microraptor
''Microraptor'' (Greek, μικρός, ''mīkros'': "small"; Latin, ''raptor'': "one who seizes") is a genus of small, four-winged dromaeosaurid dinosaurs. Numerous well-preserved fossil specimens have been recovered from Liaoning, China. They dat ...
'' in this context. This dinosaur, described in 2003, has been depicted by countless paleoartists as a "strange, dragon-like feathered glider with a reptilian face". Conway's illustration of ''Microraptor'' in ''All Yesterdays'' attempts to restore the animal "from scratch" without influence from these popular reconstructions, instead depicting it as a naturalistic, birdlike animal perched at its nest.
Despite the importance of the "All Yesterdays" movement in hindsight, the book itself argued that the modern conceptualization of paleoart was based on anatomically rigorous restorations that came alongside and subsequent to Paul, including those who experimented with these principles outside of archosaurs. For example, artists that pioneered anatomically rigorous reconstructions of fossil
hominids
The Hominidae (), whose members are known as the great apes or hominids (), are a taxonomic family of primates that includes eight extant species in four genera: '' Pongo'' (the Bornean, Sumatran and Tapanuli orangutan); ''Gorilla'' (the east ...
, like
Jay Matternes
Jay Howard Matternes (born April 14, 1933) is an American painter, paleoartist, and naturalist. His work recreating early mammals from the Oligocene, Miocene, and Pliocene epochs was widely published in the 1950s and '60s, including in the Time ...
and
Alfons and Adrie Kennis, as well fossil
mammal
Mammals () are a group of vertebrate animals constituting the class Mammalia (), characterized by the presence of mammary glands which in females produce milk for feeding (nursing) their young, a neocortex (a region of the brain), fur or ...
paleoartist
Mauricio Antón
Mauricio Antón Ortuzar (born 1961 in Bilbao, Spain) is a paleoartist and illustrator specialized in the scientific reconstruction of extinct life, well known for his influential paintings of hominids, extinct carnivores and other vertebrate fo ...
, were lauded by Conway and colleagues as seminal influences in the new culture of paleoart. Other modern paleoartists of the "anatomically rigorous" and "All Yesterdays" movement include
Jason Brougham, Mark Hallett,
Scott Hartman,
Bob Nicholls
Robert (Bob) Nicholls is a British paleoartist.
Biography
Nicholls grew up in Gloucestershire, England, and now resides in Bristol with his wife and daughter. Bob began drawing prehistoric animals before he was old enough to attend school and ...
, Emily Willoughby and
Mark P. Witton
Mark Paul Witton is a British vertebrate paleontologist, palaeontologist, author, and palaeoartist best known for his research and illustrations concerning pterosaurs, the extinct flying reptiles that lived alongside dinosaurs. He has worked wi ...
. Other authors write in agreement that the modern paleoart movement incorporates an element of "challenging tropes and the status quo" and that paleoart has "entered its experimental phase" as of the dawn of the 21st century.
A 2013 study found that older paleoart was still influential in popular culture long after new discoveries made them obsolete. This was explained as
cultural inertia. In a 2014 paper, Mark Witton, Darren Naish, and John Conway outlined the historical significance of paleoart, and criticized the over-reliance on clichés and the "culture of copying" they saw to be problematic in the field at the time. This tendency to copy "
meme
A meme ( ) is an idea, behavior, or style that spreads by means of imitation from person to person within a culture and often carries symbolic meaning representing a particular phenomenon or theme. A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural i ...
s" established and proliferated by others in the field is thought to have been a stimulus for the "All Yesterdays" movement of injecting originality back into paleoart.
Recognition
Since 1999, the
Society of Vertebrate Paleontology
The Society of Vertebrate Paleontology (SVP) is a professional organization that was founded in the United States in 1940 to advance the science of vertebrate paleontology around the world.
Mission and Activities
SVP has about 2,300 members inter ...
has awarded the
John J. Lanzendorf PaleoArt Prize for achievement in the field. The society says that paleoart "is one of the most important vehicles for communicating discoveries and data among paleontologists, and is critical to promulgating vertebrate paleontology across disciplines and to lay audiences". The SVP is also the site of the occasional/annual "PaleoArt Poster Exhibit", a
juried poster show at the opening reception of the annual SVP meetings.
Paleoart has enjoyed increasing exposure in globally recognized contests and exhibits. The
Museu da Lourinhã
Museu da Lourinhã is a museum in the town of Lourinhã, west Portugal. It was founded in 1984 by GEAL - Grupo de Etnologia e Arqueologia da Lourinhã (Lourinhã's Group of Ethnology and Archeology). The president of the Direction Board is Lubélia ...
organizes the annual International Dinosaur Illustration Contest for promoting the art of dinosaur and other fossils. In fall of 2018, the
New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science
The New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science is a natural history and science museum in Albuquerque, New Mexico near Old Town Albuquerque. The Museum was founded in 1986. It operates as a public revenue facility of the New Mexico Departmen ...
of
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Albuquerque ( ; ), ; kee, Arawageeki; tow, Vakêêke; zun, Alo:ke:k'ya; apj, Gołgéeki'yé. abbreviated ABQ, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Mexico. Its nicknames, The Duke City and Burque, both reference its founding in ...
, displayed a juried show of paleoart called "Picturing the Past". This show includes 87 works by 46 paleoartists from 15 countries, and features one of the largest and most diverse collections of prehistoric animals, settings, themes and styles.
In addition to contests and art exhibitions, paleoart continues to play a significant role in public understanding of paleontology in a variety of ways. In 2007,
The Children's Museum of Indianapolis
The Children's Museum of Indianapolis is the world's largest children's museum. It is located at 3000 North Meridian Street, Indianapolis, Indiana in the United Northwest Area neighborhood of the city. The museum is accredited by the American Al ...
released a lesson plan on paleoart for children of grades 3 to 5 that uses paleoart as a way to introduce children to paleontology. Paleontological-themed merchandise has been around since at least the mid-1800s, but the popularity of anatomically-accurate and paleoart-based merchandise is relatively novel, such as Rebecca Groom's highly accurate plush toy reconstructions of extinct animals. Starting in the 2010s, paleoart and its public perception have also been the exclusive focus of research articles that (e.g.) attempt to apply empirical methods to understand its role in society or communicate its evolution over time to other scientists.
[ McDermott (2020)]
Notable, influential paleoartists
Past (pre–Dinosaur Renaissance) paleoartists
2D artists
*
Othenio Abel
Othenio Lothar Franz Anton Louis Abel (June 20, 1875 – July 4, 1946) was an Austrian paleontologist and evolutionary biologist. Together with Louis Dollo, he was the founder of "paleobiology" and studied the life and environment of fossilized or ...
deceased, active 1910s
*
James E. Allen deceased, active 1930s
*
Robert T. Bakker active 1960-1990s
*
Henry de la Beche
Sir Henry Thomas De la Beche KCB, FRS (10 February 179613 April 1855) was an English geologist and palaeontologist, the first director of the Geological Survey of Great Britain, who helped pioneer early geological survey methods. He was the f ...
deceased, active 1900s
*
Zdeněk Burian
Zdeněk Michael František Burian (11 February 1905 in Kopřivnice, Moravia, Austria-Hungary – 1 July 1981 in Prague, Czechoslovakia) was a Czech painter, book illustrator and palaeoartist whose work played a central role in the development of p ...
deceased, active 1930s-1981
*
Alexey Petrovich Bystrov
*
Amédée Forestier
Sir Amédée Forestier (Paris 1854 – 18 November 1930 London) was an Anglo-French artist and illustrator who specialised in historical and prehistoric scenes, and landscapes.
Life and work
Forestier was born in Paris, France, and studied ...
deceased 1930
*
Joseph M. Gleeson deceased, active in late 19th and early 20th centuries
*
Heinrich Harder
Heinrich Harder (2 June 1858 – 5 February 1935) was a German artist and an art professor at the Prussian Academy of Arts in Berlin best known for his depictions of extinct animals.
Life
Heinrich Harder was born in Putzar, Pomerania, the son ...
deceased, active 1910s-1920s
*
Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins
Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins (8 February 1807 – 27 January 1894) was an English sculptor and natural history artist renowned for his work on the life-size models of dinosaurs in the Crystal Palace Park in south London. The models, accurately ...
deceased, active 1850s-1870s
*
Gerhard Heilmann
Gerhard Heilmann (later sometimes spelt "Heilman") (25 June 1859 – 26 March 1946) was a Danish artist and paleontologist who created artistic depictions of ''Archaeopteryx'', '' Proavis'' and other early bird relatives apart from writing the 19 ...
deceased, active 1920s
*
Charles R. Knight
Charles Robert Knight (October 21, 1874 – April 15, 1953) was an American wildlife and paleoartist best known for his detailed paintings of dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals. His works have been reproduced in many books and are currently ...
deceased, active 1890s-1940s
*
Jay Matternes
Jay Howard Matternes (born April 14, 1933) is an American painter, paleoartist, and naturalist. His work recreating early mammals from the Oligocene, Miocene, and Pliocene epochs was widely published in the 1950s and '60s, including in the Time ...
, active 1950s-1970s
*
William Diller Matthew
William Diller Matthew Royal Society, FRS (February 19, 1871 – September 24, 1930) was a vertebrate paleontologist who worked primarily on mammal fossils, although he also published a few early papers on mineralogy, petrological geology, one on ...
deceased, active 1900s-1910s
*
Edward Newman deceased, active 1840s
*
Othniel Charles Marsh
Othniel Charles Marsh (October 29, 1831 – March 18, 1899) was an American professor of Paleontology in Yale College and President of the National Academy of Sciences. He was one of the preeminent scientists in the field of paleontology. Among h ...
deceased, active 1890s
*
John Martin deceased, active 1830s
*
Richard Owen
Sir Richard Owen (20 July 1804 – 18 December 1892) was an English biologist, comparative anatomist and paleontologist. Owen is generally considered to have been an outstanding naturalist with a remarkable gift for interpreting fossils.
Owe ...
deceased, active 1850s
*
Ernest Untermann
Gerhard Ernest Untermann, Sr. (1864–1956) was a German-American seaman, socialist author, translator, newspaper editor. In his later life he was Director of the old Washington Park Zoo in Milwaukee, a geologist, fossil hunter, and artist.
Biogr ...
deceased, active 1930s
*
Ferdinand von Hochstetter
Christian Gottlieb Ferdinand Ritter von Hochstetter (30 April 1829 – 18 July 1884) was a German-Austrian geologist.
Career
Having received his early education at the evangelical seminary at Maulbronn, Ferdinand proceeded to the University o ...
deceased, active 1850s-1870s
*
Alice B. Woodward deceased, active 1910s
*
Rudolph F. Zallinger
Rudolph Franz Zallinger (; November 12, 1919 – August 1, 1995) was an American-based Austrians, Austrian-Russians, Russian artist. His most notable works include his mural ''The Age of Reptiles'' (1947) at Yale University's Peabody Museum of Na ...
deceased, active 1950s-1960s
3D artists
*
Mikhail Mikhailovich Gerasimov
*
Charles Whitney Gilmore
Charles Whitney Gilmore (March 11, 1874 – September 27, 1945) was an American paleontologist who gained renown in the early 20th century for his work on vertebrate fossils during his career at the United States National Museum (now the N ...
*
Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins
Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins (8 February 1807 – 27 January 1894) was an English sculptor and natural history artist renowned for his work on the life-size models of dinosaurs in the Crystal Palace Park in south London. The models, accurately ...
active 1850s-1870s
*
Richard Swann Lull
Richard Swann Lull (November 6, 1867 – April 22, 1957) was an American paleontologist and Sterling Professor at Yale University who is largely remembered now for championing a non-Darwinian view of evolution, whereby mutation(s) could unl ...
active 1910s
*
Vasily Alekseevich Vatagin
Modern (post–Dinosaur Renaissance) paleoartists
2D artists
*
Mauricio Antón
Mauricio Antón Ortuzar (born 1961 in Bilbao, Spain) is a paleoartist and illustrator specialized in the scientific reconstruction of extinct life, well known for his influential paintings of hominids, extinct carnivores and other vertebrate fo ...
1990s-
*
Andrey Atuchin 2000s-
*
Robert T. Bakker 1960s-1990s
*
Wayne D. Barlowe 1990s
*
Davide Bonadonna 2000s-
*
Kenneth Carpenter
Kenneth Carpenter (born September 21, 1949, in Tokyo, Japan) is a paleontologist. He is the former director of the USU Eastern Prehistoric Museum and author or co-author of books on dinosaurs and Mesozoic life. His main research interests ...
active 1980s
*
Karen Carr 2000s-
*
John Conway
John Horton Conway (26 December 1937 – 11 April 2020) was an English mathematician active in the theory of finite groups, knot theory, number theory, combinatorial game theory and coding theory. He also made contributions to many branches ...
2000s-
*
Julius T. Csotonyi
Julius Thomas Csotonyi (born October 11, 1973) is a Canadian paleoartist and natural history illustrator living in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. He specialises in photo-realistic restorations of dinosaurs, paleo-environments and extinct animals ...
2000s-
*
Ricardo Delgado 1990s
*
Danielle Dufault 2000s-
*
Alex Ebel
Alex Ebel (November 14, 1932 – December 6, 2013) was a science fiction and fantasy illustrator. Ebel painted the poster for the original '' Friday the 13th'' (1980), and an unused poster for ''Friday the 13th Part 2''.
Books
His illustration ...
2000s
*
John Gurche
John Gurche is an American artist known for his paintings, sculptures, and sketches of prehistoric life, especially dinosaurs and early humans. Gurche is currently an Artist in Residence at the Museum of the Earth in Ithaca, New York.
Gurche st ...
1980s-
*
James Gurney
James Gurney (born June 14, 1958) is an American artist and author known for his illustrated book series ''Dinotopia'', which is presented in the form of a 19th-century explorer's
journal from an island utopia cohabited by humans and dinosaurs. ...
1990s-
*
Doug Henderson 1980s-2000s
*
Eleanor Kish deceased, active 1970s-1990s
*
C. M. Kosemen
Cevdet Mehmet Kösemen (born 18 May 1984), also known by his former pen name Nemo Ramjet, is a Turkish researcher, artist, and author. Kosemen is known for his artwork, depicting living and extinct animals as well as surrealist scenes, and his wr ...
2010s-
*
Sergey Krasovskiy
Sergey Krasovskiy (born 1975) is a Ukrainian freelance paleoartist best known for his artistic reconstructions of dinosaurs. He was awarded the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology's John J. Lanzendorf PaleoArt Prize
The Society of Vertebrate Pa ...
2010s-
*
Todd Marshall
Todd Marshall (born 8 October 1998) is an Australian rules footballer playing for the Port Adelaide Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL). He is a tall key-position player.
Early life
Marshall grew up in Deniliquin, New Sou ...
2000s-
*
Raúl Martín 2000s-
*
Josef Moravec 1980s-
*
Darren Naish
Darren William Naish is a British vertebrate palaeontologist, author and science communicator.
As a researcher, he is best known for his work describing and reevaluating dinosaurs and other Mesozoic reptiles, including ''Eotyrannus'', ''Xenopos ...
1990s-
*
Robert Nicholls (artist) 1990s-
*
Gregory S. Paul
Gregory Scott Paul (born December 24, 1954) is an American freelance researcher, author and illustrator who works in paleontology, and more recently has examined sociology and theology. He is best known for his work and research on theropod dino ...
1970s-
*
Luis Rey 1980s-
*
John Sibbick
John Sibbick is a British freelance illustrator and paleoartist best known for his fantasy art and reconstructions of prehistoric life in several media.
Sibbick studied Graphics and Illustration at Guildford School of Art (now University for ...
1980s-
*
Velizar Simeonovski 2000s-
*
Michael Skrepnick 1990s-
*
Jan Sovak 1980s-
*
William Stout
William Stout (born September 18, 1949) is an American fantasy artist and illustrator with a specialization in paleoart, paleontological art. His paintings have been shown in over seventy exhibitions, including twelve one-man shows. He has worke ...
1970s-
*
Nobu Tamura 2000s-
*
Peter Trusler
Peter Trusler (born 1954) is an Australian artist known for his work on wildlife art, as well as for his scientifically rigorous reconstructions of prehistoric fauna.
Trusler's artwork is featured in numerous books and scientific publications, a ...
1990s-
*
Steve White 1990s-
*
Mark P. Witton
Mark Paul Witton is a British vertebrate paleontologist, palaeontologist, author, and palaeoartist best known for his research and illustrations concerning pterosaurs, the extinct flying reptiles that lived alongside dinosaurs. He has worked wi ...
2000s-
3D artists
*
Brian Cooley 1980s-
*
David Krentz
David Krentz is an American paleoartist, character designer, animator, storyboard artist, writer and director specializing in dinosaurs. As an animator for Walt Disney Pictures, Krentz has worked on Disney animated feature titles such as ''Fanta ...
2000s-
*
David Rankin 2000s-
*
Paul Sereno
Paul Callistus Sereno (born October 11, 1957) is a professor of paleontology at the University of Chicago and a National Geographic "explorer-in-residence" who has discovered several new dinosaur species on several continents, including at sites ...
2000s-
*
Michael Trcic 1990s-
Gallery
File:Brontosaurus skeleton 1880s.jpg, Skeletal restoration of ''Brontosaurus excelsus
''Brontosaurus'' (; meaning "thunder lizard" from Ancient Greek, Greek , "thunder" and , "lizard") is a genus of gigantic quadruped sauropod dinosaurs. Although the type species, ''B. excelsus'', had long been considered a species of the clos ...
'', by Othniel Charles Marsh
Othniel Charles Marsh (October 29, 1831 – March 18, 1899) was an American professor of Paleontology in Yale College and President of the National Academy of Sciences. He was one of the preeminent scientists in the field of paleontology. Among h ...
, 1896
File:Haeckel-Eurypterida1024.jpg, Eurypterids
Eurypterids, often informally called sea scorpions, are a group of extinct arthropods that form the order Eurypterida. The earliest known eurypterids date to the Darriwilian stage of the Ordovician period 467.3 million years ago. The group is l ...
by Ernst Haeckel
Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel (; 16 February 1834 – 9 August 1919) was a German zoologist, naturalist, eugenicist, philosopher, physician, professor, marine biologist and artist. He discovered, described and named thousands of new sp ...
, 1914
File:BerlinAquarium (3).jpg, Relief
Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces are bonded to a solid background of the same material. The term ''relief'' is from the Latin verb ''relevo'', to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that the ...
of '' Niolamia'' by Heinrich Harder
Heinrich Harder (2 June 1858 – 5 February 1935) was a German artist and an art professor at the Prussian Academy of Arts in Berlin best known for his depictions of extinct animals.
Life
Heinrich Harder was born in Putzar, Pomerania, the son ...
, ca 1916
File:Estauricossauro rincossauro.JPG, ''Staurikosaurus
''Staurikosaurus'' (Pronounced "STORE-ee-koh-SAWR-us", "Southern Cross lizard") is a genus of herrerasaurid dinosaur from the Late Triassic of Brazil, found in the Santa Maria Formation.
Description
Colbert (1970) described ''Staurikosaurus' ...
'' and rhynchosaur
Rhynchosaurs are a group of extinct herbivorous Triassic archosauromorph reptiles, belonging to the order Rhynchosauria. Members of the group are distinguished by their triangular skulls and elongated, beak like premaxillary bones. Rhynchosaurs ...
are animals of Geopark
A geopark is a protected area with internationally significant geology within which sustainable development is sought and which includes tourism, conservation, education and research concerning not just geology but other relevant sciences.
In 20 ...
Paleorrota produced by paleoartist Clovis Dapper
File:Velociraptor v. Protoceratops.jpg, ''Velociraptor
''Velociraptor'' (; ) is a genus of small dromaeosaurid dinosaur that lived in Asia during the Late Cretaceous epoch, about 75 million to 71 million years ago. Two species are currently recognized, although others have been assigned in the pa ...
'' and ''Protoceratops
''Protoceratops'' (; ) is a genus of small protoceratopsid dinosaurs that lived in Asia during the Late Cretaceous, around 75 to 71 million years ago. The genus ''Protoceratops'' includes two species: ''P. andrewsi'' and the larger ''P. hellenik ...
'' locked in mortal combat, by Raúl Martín 2003
File:VMNH megalodon.jpg, Megalodon
Megalodon (''Otodus megalodon''), meaning "big tooth", is an extinct species of mackerel shark that lived approximately 23 to 3.6 million years ago (Mya), from the Early Miocene to the Pliocene epochs. It was formerly thought to be a membe ...
pursuing two '' Eobalaenoptera'' whales by Karen Carr
File:Zhenjiangopterus jconway.jpg, '' Zhejiangopterus linhaiensis'' by John Conway
John Horton Conway (26 December 1937 – 11 April 2020) was an English mathematician active in the theory of finite groups, knot theory, number theory, combinatorial game theory and coding theory. He also made contributions to many branches ...
, 2006
File:Ice age fauna of northern Spain - Mauricio Antón.jpg, Ice Age
An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages and gree ...
fauna by Mauricio Anton, 2008
File:Anatosuchus.jpg, Restoration of ''Anatosuchus
''Anatosuchus'' ("duck crocodile", the name from the Latin ''anas'' ("duck") and the Greek ''souchos'' ("crocodile"), for the broad, duck-like snout) is an extinct genus of notosuchian crocodylomorph discovered in Gadoufaoua, Niger, and described ...
'' by Todd Marshall
Todd Marshall (born 8 October 1998) is an Australian rules footballer playing for the Port Adelaide Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL). He is a tall key-position player.
Early life
Marshall grew up in Deniliquin, New Sou ...
, 2009
File:Pterosaurs on South Bank.jpg, ''Quetzalcoatlus
''Quetzalcoatlus'' is a genus of pterosaur known from the Late Cretaceous period of North America (Maastrichtian stage); its members were among the largest known flying animals of all time. ''Quetzalcoatlus'' is a member of the Azhdarchidae, ...
'' models in South Bank
The South Bank is an entertainment and commercial district in central London, next to the River Thames opposite the City of Westminster. It forms a narrow strip of riverside land within the London Borough of Lambeth (where it adjoins Alber ...
, created by Mark P. Witton
Mark Paul Witton is a British vertebrate paleontologist, palaeontologist, author, and palaeoartist best known for his research and illustrations concerning pterosaurs, the extinct flying reptiles that lived alongside dinosaurs. He has worked wi ...
for the Royal Society's 350th anniversary, 2010
File:Linhenykus monodactylus.jpg, Restoration of ''Linhenykus
''Linhenykus'' is an extinct genus of alvarezsaurid theropod dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous of Inner Mongolia, China. It is the most basal known member of the Parvicursorinae. The genus gets its name from Linhe, a city near the site where th ...
'' by Julius Csotonyi, 2012
File:Dimorphodon.png, Restoration of ''Dimorphodon
''Dimorphodon'' was a genus of medium-sized pterosaur from the early Jurassic Period. It was named by paleontologist Richard Owen in 1859. ''Dimorphodon'' means "two-form tooth", derived from the Greek (') meaning "two", (') meaning "shape" an ...
'' by Mark P. Witton
Mark Paul Witton is a British vertebrate paleontologist, palaeontologist, author, and palaeoartist best known for his research and illustrations concerning pterosaurs, the extinct flying reptiles that lived alongside dinosaurs. He has worked wi ...
, 2015
File:Serikornis.jpg, Restoration of ''Serikornis
''Serikornis'' is a genus of small, feathered anchiornithid dinosaur from the Upper Jurassic Tiaojishan Formation of Liaoning, China. It is represented by the type species ''Serikornis sungei''.
Discovery
''Serikornis'', first described in A ...
'' by Emily Willoughby, 2017
Footnotes
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External links
*{{curlie, Science/Earth_Sciences/Paleontology/Art/Artists, Paleoartists
Paleoartists Hall of Fame
Paleontology
Visual arts genres