The Rise of Paleoart, and the Artist’s Role in Our Visions of Dinosaurs

Charles R. Knight, "Laelaps" (1897), the predators may represent paleontologists Othniel C. Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope, whose intense competition defined early American paleontology (courtesy American Museum of Natural History) — Charles R. Knight, “Laelaps” (1897), the predators may represent paleontologists Othniel C. Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope, whose intense competition defined early American paleontology (courtesy American Museum of Natural History)

Earlier this summer, I visited a quiet park in south London, where families pushed strollers around a small lake, and solitary people read books on benches in the sun. Nestled in the foliage by the water is a curious relic from the Crystal Palace Exhibition which gives the Crystal Palace Park its name: a herd of concrete dinosaurs, lazing with gaping jaws, and standing scaly and proud by the trees. The prehistoric creatures were made by artist Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins in the 1850s, and are recognized as the world’s first dinosaur sculptures. Yet they don’t look quite how we envision dinosaurs today; the Iguanodons appear like rotund iguanas, the Dicynodonts like overgrown turtles, although contemporary knowledge suggests they never had shells.

Cover of <em>Paleoart: Visions of the Prehistoric Past</em> (courtesy Taschen) — Cover of *Paleoart: Visions of the Prehistoric Past* (courtesy Taschen)

While their accuracy may vary (and is closer than many give him credit for), Hawkins was working with the most cutting edge 19th-century knowledge on dinosaurs to create sculptures both scientific and compellingly artistic. Paleoart has rarely been considered as part of the visual movements of the 19th and 20th centuries. Nevertheless, as writer Zoë Lescaze explores in Paleoart: Visions of the Prehistoric Past, 1830-1980, out this month from Taschen, it has been vibrantly present, whether in the dynamic Art Nouveau mosaics by Heinrich Harder at the Berlin Aquarium (reconstructed in the 1980s by Hans Jochen Ihle following their destruction in WWII), or the foreboding postwar depictions of mammoths and early humanity by Czech artist Zdeněk Burian.

“I wanted to write this book precisely because paleoart is not a widely recognized genre, even though images of dinosaurs and their world are everywhere,” Lescaze told Hyperallergic. “It’s a fairly new branch of natural history illustration — the first painting of prehistoric reptiles only appeared in 1830 — and I’m interested in how artists and scientists collectively formed our current ideas of prehistory through these images.”

Paleoart: Visions of the Prehistoric Past, 1830-1980 — Heinrich Harder, reconstructed by Hans Jochen Ihle, “Pteranodon” (1982), the original was destroyed when explosives blasted the Berlin Aquarium in November 1943, destroying Harder’s mosaics on the façade. In 1982, the Aquarium reconstructed the mosaics, using photographs, tile fragments, and Harder’s original plans (courtesy TASCHEN)

Paleoart is a monstrous book in size, visuals, and design; take off its dust jacket, adorned with Alexei Petrovich Bystrow’s 1933 painting of an Inostrancevia with crimson Pareiasaurus flesh dripping from its teeth, and a scaly cover embedded with a dinosaur footprint is revealed. Tracking down this art was not easy and Lescaze had to delve into a diverse array of institutional and private archives, with some of the pieces published for the first time in the book. For instance, she describes in Paleoart how much of Burian’s “finest works languish out of sight, locked in museum storage” in the Czech Republic. Similarly, Hawkins’s London dinosaurs were abandoned for decades after the Crystal Palace burned in 1936, only later saved from the overgrowth and restored.

“Because fresh fossil discoveries tend to render older works of paleoart scientifically obsolete, many outdated images are neglected, lost, or destroyed,” Lescaze explained. “Some pieces in this book are still on public display, but finding the others involved visiting natural history museums, libraries, archives, universities, and private collections around the United States, United Kingdom, Europe, and Russia.”

Philip Henry Delamotte, "Model-Room at the Crystal Palace" (1853), showing concrete dinosaurs being built in a workshop on the grounds of the Crystal Palace, London (courtesy TASCHEN) — Philip Henry Delamotte, “Model-Room at the Crystal Palace” (1853), showing concrete dinosaurs being built in a workshop on the grounds of the Crystal Palace, London (courtesy TASCHEN)

Paleoart is arranged chronologically, and flipping through its pages, some which fold out into panoramas of idyllic tableaux of the “Age of Reptiles” or bloody battles of dinosaur chaos, you can see how our idea of what a dinosaur looks like evolved. In one delightfully anachronistic mash-up from 1889, dinosaurs and mammoths mingle together, with one wooly mammoth grabbing a unicorn with its trunk. An incredibly detailed 1984 terracotta installation by Alexander Mikhailovich Belashov at the Moscow Paleontological Museum shows more familiarly lithe and reptilian dinosaurs, but the whole scene of Earth evolution is crowned by the Virgin Mary and Jesus.

Ely Kish, "Tyrannosaurus and Edmontosaurus" (1976) (courtesy Eleanor Kish, © Canadian Museum of Nature) — Ely Kish, “Tyrannosaurus and Edmontosaurus” (1976) (courtesy Eleanor Kish, © Canadian Museum of Nature)

Adolphe-François Pannemaker in the 19th century also added a biblical tone to his illustrations, with volcanoes bursting and lightning striking in one rather apocalyptic piece, while other artists in those early paleoart days favored the battling ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs, their ocean confrontations referencing Victorian naval conflicts. Later in the 1970s to 1990s, Ely Kish painted the mass extinction of dinosaurs and extreme weather environments, her dramatic scenes echoing the contemporary anxiety about climate change and environmental catastrophe. And sometimes the double meanings of paleoart could only be glimpsed by those in the field. An 1897 painting by Charles R. Knight shows two Laelaps (Dryptosauruses) in a fight with claws and teeth bared. Some have interpreted it as a jab at paleontologists and specifically the vicious rivalry between Othniel Charles Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope, two renowned figures who were not above dynamiting each other’s dig sites.

Dinosaur bones have long been a blank slate for projecting the artistic sensibilities, popular media, and anxieties of the day onto their forms. With each reconstruction of the past, a bit of the present is reflected. As Lescaze said, “Paleoart is interesting to me because I think it often reveals as much about modern humans as it does about dinosaurs.”

Alexei Petrovich Bystrow, "Inostrancevia, devouring a Pareiasaurus" (1933); both species regularly appeared in Soviet-era paleoart (courtesy Borrissiak Paleontological Institute RAS) — Alexei Petrovich Bystrow, “Inostrancevia, devouring a Pareiasaurus” (1933); both species regularly appeared in Soviet-era paleoart (courtesy Borrissiak Paleontological Institute RAS)

Pages from <em>Paleoart: Visions of the Prehistoric Past </em> (photo of the book for Hyperallergic) — Pages from *Paleoart: Visions of the Prehistoric Past* (photo of the book for Hyperallergic)

Adolphe François Pannemaker, "The Primitive World" (1857), the image was the frontispiece for W. F. A. Zimmerman’s <em>Le monde avant la création de l’homme</em> (1857) (courtesy of TASCHEN) — Adolphe François Pannemaker, “The Primitive World” (1857), the image was the frontispiece for W. F. A. Zimmerman’s *Le monde avant la création de l’homme* (1857) (courtesy TASCHEN)

Edouard Riou; engraved by Laurent Hotelin and Alexandre Hurel, "The Ichthyosaur and the Plesiosaur (Lias Period)" (1863); from the beginning, artists and scientists portrayed ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs as enemies. The reptiles, battling above the waves, became the most prevalent motif in 19th-century paleoart (courtesy of TASCHEN) — Edouard Riou; engraved by Laurent Hotelin and Alexandre Hurel, “The Ichthyosaur and the Plesiosaur (Lias Period)” (1863); from the beginning, artists and scientists portrayed ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs as enemies. The reptiles, battling above the waves, became the most prevalent motif in 19th-century paleoart (courtesy TASCHEN)

Zdenek Burian, "Mammoth (Elephas primigenius)" (1941) (courtesy TASCHEN) — Zdenek Burian, “Mammoth (Elephas primigenius)” (1941) (courtesy TASCHEN)

Konstantin Konstantinovich Flyorov, "Tarbosaurus and Armored Dinosaur" (1955), oil on canvas (courtesy Borrissiak Paleontological Institute RAS) — Konstantin Konstantinovich Flyorov, “Tarbosaurus and Armored Dinosaur” (1955), oil on canvas (courtesy Borrissiak Paleontological Institute RAS)

Paleoart: Visions of the Prehistoric Past, 1830-1980 was released September 11 by Taschen.

Source: The Rise of Paleoart, and the Artist’s Role in Our Visions of Dinosaurs

Airships and Reanimated Corpses from the Pages of Early Science Fiction

Illustration from Albert Robida's 'Le vingtième siècle [The twentieth century]' (Paris, 1880s) (courtesy Smithsonian Libraries) — Illustration from Albert Robida’s ‘Le vingtième siècle’ (‘The twentieth century,’ Paris, 1880s) (courtesy Smithsonian Libraries)

WASHINGTON, DC — Science fiction rose to prominence in the 19th and early 20th centuries, when authors like H. G. Wells, Jules Verne, and Mary Shelley imagined the extraordinary possibilities of advances in technology and exploration. Fantastic Worlds: Science and Fiction 1780–1910, on view in the newly renovated Smithsonian Libraries Gallery at the National Museum of American History, centers on this era of change and the dreams both dark and hopeful it inspired.

Curated by Kirsten van der Veen and Doug Dunlop, the exhibition is small, but ambitious. Everything from the laying of the transatlantic cable to the popularity of home aquariums is touched on, with plenty of early robots, airships, and Arctic explorers in between. The emphasis of the exhibition is on books, with some objects from the Smithsonian joining in the busy glass boxes in the dark gallery. It’s a shame there aren’t more of these objects though, as some are just teased in photographs, like an unsettling mechanized “creeping baby doll” from 1871 held by the museum.

A coinciding online exhibition explores the ideas more thoroughly, with better room for text than the gallery walls. Nevertheless, the physical iteration of Fantastic Worlds includes many beautiful and rare books from the Smithsonian Libraries, such as Rudyard Kipling’s 1909 With the Night Mail — set in the year 2000 in a world populated by airships, its deep blue cover showing a dirigible soaring amid the stars — and Thomas Baldwin’s 1875 Airopaidia, which features some of the first aerial illustrations of the Earth.

Arranged in seven sections, including “Age of the Aeronaut” and “Terra Incognita,” Fantastic Worlds compares concrete science to the fiction it influenced. Shelley’s 1818 novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, with its reanimated corpse, followed physician Luigi Galvani’s experiments with the “animal electricity” he perceived when his charged scalpel touched a dead frog’s leg and made it kick, and coincided the rise of electrical shocks used for medical treatments in the 19th century. Jules Verne channeled the doomed Franklin expedition to the Arctic in his 1864 The Adventures of Captain Hatteras, although in that tale his fictional crew found a volcano at the North Pole instead of resorting to cannibalism. A few years later, Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea delved into pioneering ocean exploration, with Captain Nemo’s submersible the Nautilus inspired by the author’s viewing of a French submarine at the Paris Exposition of 1867.

Installation view of 'Fantastic Worlds' (photo by the author for Hyperallergic) — Objects related to flight in ‘Fantastic Worlds’ (photo by the author for Hyperallergic)

Strangely for an exhibition at an institution of US history, much of the work is European, and it would have been interesting to explore how even American writers not generally inclined to write fantasy were experimenting with science fiction narratives. For example, Jack London wrote The Iron Heel (1908), musing on a future United States where democracy had turned to oligarchy, and Mark Twain’s 1889 novel A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court involved time travel.

However, one of the most fleshed out incidents — the “Great Moon Hoax” of 1885 — was based in New York City. Richard Adams Locke with The Sun newspaper published fictional reports from real British astronomer John Herschel that he had spotted life on the moon, specifically “manbats.” It was intended as satire, but the public loved it so much that, according to the Smithsonian, “the Sun’s owner would not allow Locke to expose the truth.” As an odd footnote, none other than horror and mystery writer Edgar Allan Poe had penned his own moon hoax before The Sun, and was outraged at what he perceived as plagiarism. Like much of Fantastic Worlds, the incident pivots at the intersection of science and fiction, at a time when both fields were looking to a future that would surely be just as wondrous as it was strange.

Sheet music for “Northward Ho!, or, Baffled, Not Beaten” (London, 1879) with words by Commander John P. Cheyne; music by Odoardi [i.e. Odoardo] Barri (courtesy Smithsonian Libraries). Cheyne was a veteran of three Arctic expeditions that searched for the missing explorer John Franklin and his crew. His lecture tour and the song publication were aimed at gaining public support.

"Frank Reade, Jr. and His Engine of the Clouds" (New York, 1903), from 'Frank Reade Weekly Magazine' (courtesy Smithsonian Libraries, gift of the Burndy Library). The F'rank Reade Weekly Magazine' was a popular series of dime novels, starring Reade as a brilliant, world-traveling inventor. — “Frank Reade, Jr. and His Engine of the Clouds” (New York, 1903), from ‘Frank Reade Weekly Magazine’ (courtesy Smithsonian Libraries, gift of the Burndy Library). The ‘Frank Reade Weekly Magazine’ was a popular series of dime novels, starring Reade as a brilliant, world-traveling inventor.

The flying man, or, The adventures of a young inventor, by Harry Kennedy, 1891. Item scanned for use in Fantastic Worlds Exhibition. Barcode 39088000553230 Call no. PZ7 .K35 1891 — Harry Kennedy, ‘The Flying Man, or the Adventures of a Young Inventor,’ from The Boy’s Star Library (New York, 1891) (courtesy Smithsonian Libraries)

Illustration from Leopoldo Galluzzo's 'Altre scoverte fatte nella luna dal Sigr. Herschel [Other lunar discoveries from Signor Herschel]' (Naples, 1836) (courtesy Smithsonian Libraries) — Illustration from Leopoldo Galluzzo’s ‘Altre scoverte fatte nella luna dal Sigr. Herschel’ (‘Other lunar discoveries from Signor Herschel,’ Naples, 1836) (courtesy Smithsonian Libraries)

Illustration from Asa Smith's 'Smith's Illustrated Astronomy: Designed for the Use of the Public or Common Schools in the United States' (New York, 1849) (courtesy Smithsonian Libraries, gift of the Burndy Library) — Illustration from Asa Smith’s ‘Smith’s Illustrated Astronomy: Designed for the Use of the Public or Common Schools in the United States’ (New York, 1849) (courtesy Smithsonian Libraries, gift of the Burndy Library)

Fantastic Worlds: Science and Fiction 1780–1910 from the Smithsonian Libraries continues through February 26, 2017, at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History (1 West 14th Street and Constitution Avenue NW, Washington, DC).

Source: Airships and Reanimated Corpses from the Pages of Early Science Fiction

A History of Science Fiction’s Future Visions

Installation view of <em>Into the Unknown</em> at the Barbican in London (photo by the author for Hyperallergic) — Installation view of *Into the Unknown* at the Barbican in London (photo by the author for Hyperallergic)

LONDON — The 1982 film Blade Runner imagined 2019 Los Angeles as a dystopia of noirish neon and replicants, robots sent to do hard labor on off-world colonies. It’s a future in which engineered beings are so close to humans as to make the characters question the very nature of life. We’re now just a couple of years from this movie’s timeline, and although our robots are still far from mirroring humanity, our science fiction continues to envision giant leaps in technology that are often rooted in contemporary concerns of where our innovations are taking us.

Patrick Gyger, curator of Into the Unknown: A Journey through Science Fiction at the Barbican Centre, told Hyperallergic that, for him, science fiction “allows creators to look beyond the horizon of knowledge and play with concepts and situations.” The exhibition is a sprawling examination of the genre of science fiction going back to the 19th century, with over 800 works. These include film memorabilia, vintage books, original art, and even a kinetic sculpture in a lower-level space by Conrad Shawcross. “In Light of The Machine” has a huge, robotic arm twisting within a henge-like circle of perforated walls, so visitors can only glimpse its strange dance at first, before moving to the center and seeing that it holds one bright light at the end of its body.

Film still from <em>2001: A Space Odyssey</em> (1968) (courtesy the Roger Grant Archive) — Film still from *2001: A Space Odyssey* (1968) (courtesy the Roger Grant Archive)

Most of Into the Unknown is concentrated in the Barbican’s Curve space, a winding gallery with a high ceiling that permits objects to be stacked to the ceiling. They range from spacesuits worn in Star Trek and Moon (2009), to the robot TARS from Interstellar (2014) and Ava from Ex Machina (2015), to drawings by H. R. Giger for the Alien series and paintings by James Gurney for his Dinotopia books. The post-war architecture of the Barbican is a fitting setting for Into the Unknown, with its concrete angles and utopian spirit. In conjunction with the show, Penguin Classics released a series of limited-edition science fiction books with Barbican architecture on their covers. The brutalist conservatory graces H. G. Well’s The Island of Doctor Moreau, and two of the triangular towers appear on George Orwell’s 1984.

Throughout the exhibition, niche and popular culture are juxtaposed, chronicling how science fiction emerged as a cultural force in the 20th century. Manuscripts by Jules Verne hold incredible insights into how much research the author put into works such as Around the World in Eighty Days (1872), and an adjacent display of dinosaur models sculpted by Ray Harryhausen for 1960s stop-motion shows how, by the mid-20th century, films were using recent scientific knowledge for entertainment. Artwork like Dino De Laurentiis’s storyboard drawings for the Sandworm battle in the 1984 Dune (and some nearby concept art by Giger for Alejandro Jodorowsky’s unrealized version), testify to artists’ presence in shaping science fiction. An array of aerospace industry advertisements from the 1950s and ’60s feature fantastic spacecraft similar to those in Soviet postcards illustrated by Andrey Sokolov and Alexei Leonov (a cosmonaut who created the first artwork in space).

Gyger noted that the fact that the genre “has been so impactful” cannot be separated from the link to “its context of production and to the mass market that makes it flourish.” Over the years, this has involved pulp magazines, trading cards, comics, and paperbacks, often aimed at young audiences, or presented as a cheap thrills.

Certainly science fiction is incredibly popular at the moment — see the success of Westworld, The Handmaid’s Tale, and Black Mirror (which is featured in the exhibition through a six-foot video installation based on the unnerving virtual world in the episode “Fifteen Million Merits“). While these series explore serious issues in our reality, there’s still a tendency to overlook them as serious art (unless you count The Lord of the Rings, no science fiction film has won the “Best Picture” Oscar, for instance). Into the Unknown might not sway anyone without a curiosity for science fiction, being that you’re immediately immersed in a constellation of spaceships, dinosaurs, alien monsters, and robots. But for those with an interest, it demonstrates how these themes developed from “low” to “high” art.

Into the Unknown: A Journey Through Science Fiction — Postcard of “On the first Lunar cosmodrome” (1968), by Andrey Sokolov and Alexei Leonov (courtesy Moscow Design Museum)

The exhibition shows, but does not dwell on, who has been left out of a history mostly shaped by white men (there are rare exceptions on view, like the “Astro Black” video installation by Soda_Jerk that muses on Sun Ra’s theories of Afrofuturism). It would be worthwhile to spend more time on figures who broke through these barriers, such as author Octavia Butler. As discussed on a recent podcast from Imaginary Worlds, her black characters were sometimes portrayed as white on her book covers to make them more appealing to science fiction readers. The exhibition could also have a deeper context for why certain veins of science fiction are prominent in particular eras, and perhaps question why we don’t have a lot of science fiction narratives on current crises like climate change. For instance, the much smaller 2016 exhibition Fantastic Worlds: Science and Fiction 1780–1910 from the Smithsonian Libraries compared milestones like Mary Shelley’s 1818 Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus with physician Luigi Galvani’s “animal electricity” experiments on animating dead frog legs, and highlighted how Jules Verne channeled the doomed Franklin expedition in his 1864 book The Adventures of Captain Hatteras.

Nevertheless, having an exhibition like Into the Unknown at a mainstream space like the Barbican is significant, showing the art world appreciates science fiction beyond kitsch. And science fiction continues to be one of our important portals for thinking about the ramifications of our technological choices, and where they might take us. There’s a reason that 1984 is now having a popular Broadway production in a year of “alternative facts,” and why Black Mirror episodes such as “Nosedive,” where a person’s worth is judged by their social media “likes,” resonate so deeply.

“It is the genre of ‘what if,’ shedding light on our hopes and fears for a future closely linked to our present and our environment,” Gyger said. “In doing so it inspires and warns us, while entertaining us, creating a plethora of iconography, and leaving a deep mark on culture.”

Glass plates for magic lantern depicting scenes from Jules Verne's <em>Around the World in Eighty Days</em> (Paris, 1885), lithographic transfer on glass (photo by the author for Hyperallergic) — Glass plates for magic lantern depicting scenes from Jules Verne’s *Around the World in Eighty Days* (Paris,
1885), lithographic transfer on glass (photo by the author for Hyperallergic)

Albert Badoureau, "Le Titan Moderne: Notes et observations remises à Jules Verne pour la rédaction de son roman sans dessus dessous [The Modern Titan: Notes and observations presented to Jules Verne for the writing of his novel <em>The Purchase of the North Pole</em> or <em>Topsy-Turvy</em> (1888), manuscript page (photo by the author for Hyperallergic) — Albert Badoureau, “Le Titan Moderne: Notes et observations remises à Jules Verne pour la rédaction de son roman sans dessus dessous” (“The Modern Titan: Notes and observations presented to Jules Verne for the writing of his novel *The Purchase of the North Pole* or *Topsy-Turvy*,” 1888), manuscript page (photo by the author for Hyperallergic)

<em>Amazing Stories #1</em> (July 1933), Agence Martienne (courtesy Maison d'Ailleurs/Agence Martienne) — *Amazing Stories #1* (July 1933), Agence Martienne (courtesy Maison d’Ailleurs/Agence Martienne)

8mm film reel boxes (1949-67) (photo by the author for Hyperallergic) — 8mm film reel boxes (1949–67) (photo by the author for Hyperallergic)

George Pal Productions, Luna spaceship miniature from the film <em>Destination Moon</em> (1950), mixed media (photo by the author for Hyperallergic) — George Pal Productions, Luna spaceship miniature from the film *Destination Moon* (1950), mixed media (photo by the author for Hyperallergic)

De Laurentiis, series of three Sandworm battle storyboards for the film <em>Dune</em> (1984), pencil on vellum adhered to board (photo by the author for Hyperallergic) — Dino De Laurentiis, series of three Sandworm battle storyboards for the film *Dune* (1984), pencil on vellum adhered to board (photo by the author for Hyperallergic)

Magazine cover, <em>Amazing Stories #1</em> (April 1926), Agence Martienne (courtesy Maison d'Ailleurs/Agence Martienne) — Magazine cover, *Amazing Stories #1* (April 1926), Agence Martienne (courtesy Maison d’Ailleurs/Agence Martienne)

Trevor Paglen, "Orbital Reflector (Diamond Variation)" (2017), freestanding model for inflatable spacecraft; aluminum, stainless steel, acrylic (photo by the author for Hyperallergic) — Trevor Paglen, “Orbital Reflector (Diamond Variation)” (2017), freestanding model for inflatable spacecraft; aluminum, stainless steel, acrylic (photo by the author for Hyperallergic)

Conrad Shawcross," In Light of The Machine," kinetic installation (photo by the author for Hyperallergic) — Conrad Shawcross,” In Light of The Machine,” kinetic installation (photo by the author for Hyperallergic)

Into the Unknown: A Journey through Science Fiction continues through September 1 at the Barbican Centre (Silk Street, London, UK).

Source: A History of Science Fiction’s Future Visions