The Art of the Dinosaur: Illustrations by the Top Paleoartists in the World
he Art of the Dinosaur is a collection of dinosaur illustrations by nine of the world’s most technically and aesthetically accomplished paleoartists today. Each dinosaur is reproduced elaborately and faithfully based on the most recent scientific discoveries, and these astonishing detailed illustrations will upend readers’ conventional ideas about dinosaurs.
Paleoart is any original artistic work that attempts to reconstruct or depict prehistoric life according to the latest knowledge and scientific evidence in paleontology today. Paleoart first became extremely popular during the 1990s following the megahit Jurassic Park (1993) and has been enhanced by advances in computer graphics technology. Since 2000, the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology has awarded the Lanzendorf PaleoArt Prize for achievement in the field. Honorees featured in the book include Luis V. Rey, Davide Bonadonna, and Rodolfo Nogueira.
The artists in this collection present a selection of their works that show not only the dynamism of this artistic genre, but also the great detail and individual technique of each art work itself. The artistic renderings are the result of collaborations with paleontologists and are based on the most recent discoveries. The artists’ own words about their professional focus, their methods and techniques and how they became fascinated with dinosaur art, are also presented. Informative captions include the name, habitat, and time period of each dinosaur, along with the media used in each art work.
Dinosaur lovers, fantasy art fans, as well as 3D art professionals and students will enjoy exploring the world of dinosaur art today with this gorgeous full color hardcover book.
Hardcover 200 pages
Dimensions 21 x 29.7 cm
ISBN 9784756249227
Book 67 in Order Form
Dinosaur Art The World’s Greatest Paleoart
By: Steve J White (Editor) , Philip J Currie (Foreword By) , Scott D Sampson (Preface By) , Julius T Csotonyi (Illustrator) , Gregory S Paul (Illustrator) , Mauricio Antón (Illustrator) , Douglas Henderson (Illustrator) , Todd Marshall (Illustrator) , John Sibbick (Illustrator) , Luis V Rey (Illustrator) , John Conway (Illustrator) , Robert Nicholls (Illustrator) , Raúl Martín (Illustrator)
188 pages, colour & b/w illustrations
Publisher: Titan Books Ltd
Click to have a closer look
About this book Customer reviews Biography Related titles Recommended titles
Images Additional images
About this book
A paleoartist is an illustrator who specialises in the science and art of reconstructing ancient animals and their world. In Dinosaur Art, ten of the top contemporary paleoartists reveal a selection of their work and exclusively discuss their working methods and distinct styles. Filled with breathtaking artwork – some never before seen – and cutting edge paleontology, this is a treasure trove for dinosaur enthusiasts, art lovers and budding illustrators.
Steve White has drawn dinosaurs since he was four, for fun and professionally. Mauricio Antón has created artwork for museum exhibits worldwide. John Conway has worked on projects for the Discovery Channel and the American Museum of Natural History. Julius Csotonyi has produced work for 25 publishers and museum exhibits, including National Geographic. Douglas Henderson was credited as a ‘Dinosaur Specialist’ on Jurassic Park, and his artwork can actually be seen hanging in John Hammond’s room in Jurassic Park 2: The Lost World! Todd Marshall is best known for his collaborations with renowned paleontologist, Paul Serono. Raúl Martín‘s stunning oil and digital paintings have also appeared as murals in museums across the planet. Robert Nicholls‘ illustrations, murals and 3D models are exhibited all around the world. Gregory S. Paul has renamed several dinosaurs, and has been active in such fields as dinosaur physiology and thermodynamics. He was heavily involved in advising the filmmakers of Jurassic Park and several TV series. Luis Rey illustrated Dinosaurs: The Most Complete, Up-to-Date Encyclopedia for Dinosaur Lovers of All Ages. John Sibbick has been an independent illustrator for 30 years.
Art / Photobook
Series: Dinosaur Art Volume: 1
By: Steve J White (Editor) , Philip J Currie (Foreword By) , Scott D Sampson (Preface By) , Julius T Csotonyi (Illustrator) , Gregory S Paul (Illustrator) , Mauricio Antón (Illustrator) , Douglas Henderson (Illustrator) , Todd Marshall (Illustrator) , John Sibbick (Illustrator) , Luis V Rey (Illustrator) , John Conway (Illustrator) , Robert Nicholls (Illustrator) , Raúl Martín (Illustrator)
Two Centuries of Dinosaur Art Come Alive in This Gorgeous New Book
For most dinosaur nerds, it’s not pictures of bone-white skulls or smashed fossils that got them hooked on paleontology. It’s all those awesome paintings of T. rex ripping out the throats of iguanodons, pterodactyls gliding over prehistoric jungles and long-necked titanosaurs slurping up tons of vegetation.
It turns out there’s a name for that genre of mind-blowing images: Paleoart. In Taschen’s new book Paleoart: Visions of the Prehistoric Past, writer and art historian Zoë Lescaze explores the history of the art form, which began about 200 years ago and has developed into a critical part of the paleontological world.
The history was the brain child of Lescaze and artist Walton Ford, who contributes a forward and whose paintings are often a weird, satirical take on 19th-century naturalist paintings. Lescaze spent almost four years traveling the United States and Europe tracking the history of paleoart, which was inadvertently first developed in 1830 by scientist Henry Thomas De la Beche, founder of the British Geological Survey. Beche’s friend and neighbor, the fossil hunter Mary Anning, was making incredible finds including the first complete Plesiosaurus, but because of her sex, poverty and lack of education she received little recognition. To bring attention to Anning, Beche painted the watercolor “Duria Antiquior—A More Ancient Dorset,” illustrating her finds. Prints of the image became a bestseller.
That popular painting set off the entire genre. At first, Lescaze explains, the works were largely confined to scientific texts. But in 1854, British naturalist and artist Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins displayed life-sized sculptures of dinosaurs at the Crystal Palace in Sydenham, southeast London, introducing dinosaurs to a mass audience. Americans, too, caught the dinosaur bug, and illustrations of extinct animals soon infiltrated the academic and popular press and became common at natural history museums.
Today, such illustrations are carefully vetted and produced in an almost photo-realistic style. But in the first 150 years of paleoart, artists had much less information to work with, taking some interesting liberties with their subjects and often rendering them in the style of the day, whether that was neo-Impressionism, Art Nouveau or even Social Realism.
“Paleoart went from this sort of niche two-dimensional format to take on every conceivable form,” Lescaze says. “One of the highlights of my research was going to Moscow and finding an enormous concave mosaic that towers several dozen feet above you that was just magnificent with hundreds of animals on this glazed ceramic. In the same museum you have a mural that is golden and pastel sort of like Monet’s water lilies. So it went from small scale origins to these monumental statements and everything in between. That’s what makes the genre so interesting to me.”
We asked Lescaze to give us some more insight into the overlooked history of dino-art.
Where did you find all these incredible images?
Paleoart is this sprawling genre that spans the UK, Europe and the United States. The research became this fascinating process of tracking down these more obscure works and unsung artists. There are so many works I found in university archives and natural history museums— oil paintings that were lodged between shelves of saber-toothed tiger skulls that were just beautiful pieces that had never been reproduced or only once in an obsolete science book. So it was a real pleasure to bring some of these artworks to light and perhaps introduce audiences to a genre they may not be familiar with.
Should this stuff be in art museums, or are they just curiosities from paleontology’s past?
I think that they are extremely valuable and their value extends beyond their original scientific purposes. They occupy this nebulous niche between scientific illustration and fine art proper. They are not works of fine art, many of them are didactic and designed to relay information. Because they’re images of things no human has ever seen, works of paleoart can get discarded in a way that I think images of hawks and herons would not. They are seen as being scientifically obsolete, so why keep them around?
I came to appreciate works of paleoart as being able to tell us a lot about the time in which they were created, the political context and the cultural context. A dinosaur painted in Soviet Russia looks a lot different than one painted in occupied France or Gilded Age America. Because of that they’re worth hanging onto, and if this book has any effect on natural history museums and other institutions on preserving outdated works of paleoart I’d be thrilled.
Has paleoart skewed our view of prehistoric creatures?
I think in the beginnings of the genre in particular paleoart was really controversial. Some scientists didn’t believe it should be made in a lot of situations. [For instance], Labyrinthodont, was a species that Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins sculpted, and he sort of made it like a very wonky-looking frog. Shortly after that, more specimens were found and scientists revised their idea of what it looked like. But [Hawkins’] form kept getting repeated everywhere. [Leading American paleontologist] Othniel Charles Marsh was like, just look at that snafu, let’s not do more of those.
These ideas are hard to eradicate once they’ve lodged themselves in people’s minds. It’s interesting to consider that now. Scientists have had evidence for a while now that many dinosaurs had feathers. But the new Jurassic Park film comes out and none of them have feathers. People are married to the idea that dinosaurs have this crocodilian, leathery, scaly, reptile skin. This is the power of these images.
Do you have a favorite paleoartist?
Yes! Konstantin Konstantinovich Flyorov, this Russian artist who I wasn’t even a little bit aware of when I started this project. Despite being a scientist himself, working in Soviet-era Russia, he really played it fast and loose with the fossil evidence, adapting dinosaurs and prehistoric mammals to his own aesthetic purposes. He was obviously having so much fun through the sheer act of painting, and, of course, this is at a time when proper fine artists were under pretty strict scrutiny from the state, so he inadvertently had almost more room to play by painting within the scientific arena. You see these animals painted in shades of lilac and marigold and these big expressive brushstrokes. They’re not depicted as literally scientific or particularly helpful in any educational way. They are just gorgeous paintings, and I think they’re great.
Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.
Jason Daley is a Madison, Wisconsin-based writer specializing in natural history, science, travel, and the environment. His work has appeared in Discover, Popular Science, Outside, Men’s Journal, and other magazines.
