After my
Paleoartist of the Month post, I received an interesting email from the writer of
Bloggasm (great name), who just interviewed James Gurney:
Pencil journalism: An artist's attempt to depolarize the proselytizers. The interview covered the same post by Gurney that was featured last week on
Pharyngula, where he shared his experience of inviting two Jehovah's Witnesses to sit down and allow him to sketch one of them.
It's nice that the post is getting him lots of attention, but personally I remain much more interested in the entries about art and technique and dinosaurs.
On that note, on May 27,
Laelaps featured an
interview with Paleoartist Michael Skrepnick, someone I already have in mind for a future
PAotM.
Skrepnick discusses how he became a
paleoartist, as well as some of the challenges of reconstructing extinct animals, the techniques he uses, and the scientific validity of
paleoart.
The interview reminded me of an interesting and slightly annoying conversation I had last year. In graduate school, I asked the professor of my Vertebrate Paleontology class, "Why are
Parasaurolophus so often depicted with a fan of skin stretched under their
head-crest?" Like so:
(painting by Rich Penney)With a smirk, my professor said it was "because dinosaur artists need to make money." I was taken aback! So, of course, I had to bring up the subject the next time we were in the fossil lab together. I asked what he thought of reconstructions. He didn't like them! It's one thing to draw the bones, but once you start adding flesh and
environment, you're bound to make mistakes, he asserted. I wish I could remember his exact words, but his point was that these types of illustrations are just artworks, not science.
Well, to an extent, I
dissagree. Even something like this:
(from the Natural History Museum, if you can't tell)
...makes certain assumptions about the animal that future research could show to be wrong... placement of bones, posture, etc...(Actually I'm not sure how old this drawing is, but it looks painfully quadrupedal, doesn't it?)
And what's more, mistakes that
have been made in the past, such as the idea that the
Parasaurolophus crest was an air chamber or some kind of
snorkel:
(from a very, very old book called "All About Dinosaurs")... also existed in the
literature. It wasn't a fanciful idea drawn up willy-
nilly by a carried-away artist, but was rather illustrated based on what was believed by scientists about the fossil at the time.
I'll admit, as an artist who is partial to this kind of work, I'm probably biased. So I'll quote Michael
Skrepnick from the above linked article:
Throughout the history of paleontology, paleo art has provided a reliable visual record, and essentially a "mirror" of progress within the science. Greater advances in technology, related disciplines, sheer volume of specimens and research, all reinforce an increasingly accurate assessment of ancient life on earth.
I'll admit
Skrepnick might be
biased, too, but I couldn't have said it better than that. Indeed we can confidently assume that the more we learn, the more accurate the art becomes. He continues:
Not so very long ago, snarling, upright theropods stalked slow, lumbering, swamp dwelling sauropods, incapable of walking unsupported on dry land. At the time, it was accepted, "cutting edge" science, today we have a much revised understanding of diversity and extremes in dinosaur evolution. Barriers have been broken, sauropods twice the size walk freely on land, tyrannosaurs have "tipped" forward, small theropods have feathers, psittacosaurs have "quills", etc. . .
Is our understanding now refined enough to offer a realistic vision of lost worlds ?
What I wonder, will today's " cutting edge " look like, in 2108 ? . . .
So what is the worth of paleoart? Yes it is fluid, and dynamic, and changes with scientific views and is bound to continue to change. But I think its real value lies in the way it captures the imagination of the general audience. Think especially of young people, whose early interest in science often begins with reading about fantastic prehistoric creatures. We owe it to them to make biological history exciting, to give it life and color and generally just more badass and cool. Here, have some more James Gurney to prove my point:
rrraarr!
this CG feather,
and a really dynamic 3-D evolutionary tree:
As an illustrator trapped in the 2nd Dimension, I admit to getting Maya envy occasionally, especially when I see stuff like this. In the future I'd like to explore some of the uses for 3D software in visualizing evolution--functional uses beyond simply making things dynamic-looking (not to undermine the importance of making things look dynamic, of course!).
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