11Composition, Mood and Purpose
‘ The problems of perspective, good drawing, and composition are therefore just as necessary to a pleasing and correct solution in depicting a fossil form as they are in making a painting of a living animal’.
Any palaeoartwork beyond an illustration purely showing facts of anatomy must consider aspects of composition (Fig. 11.1). Guidelines for composition in palaeoart are essentially no different to those of other artistry and, as with all art, the strength of a composition can make all the difference to the success of a painting. The placement of objects and subjects, choices of colour and lighting, the shape of our landscapes and the proportions of our canvases are important compositional factors. Entire books and studies are devoted to the compositions of artworks and it is beyond our scope to discuss these guidelines fully here. Classes, books and other means of learning about artistic composition will benefit palaeoart as much as they do other forms of artwork.
Fig. 11.1 A small flock of Rhamphorhynchus muensteri hangs on the wind over a wave. This image closely observes the behaviour of real flying animals and marine settings, augmenting its believability tremendously. (R. Groom)
The greatest compositional challenge to palaeoartists is that so much of our work is imagined: aspects of topography, light, weather conditions, and of course the subject species are designed in our minds before they are ‘made real’ in art. To that end, it helps to experiment with variations on a palaeoart concept before beginning work in earnest. Even experienced artists rarely pin down a perfect composition first time, so thumbnail sketches and/or light doodles are a useful method to explore ideas, and the use of models – even toys or crude sculptures in clay, card or temporary wall adhesives – can be useful visual aids. Even if working digitally, be wary of getting too involved with an artwork before basics of the layout have been achieved; the easy editing and rearranging possible in software are little solace for having to erase or obscure work representing many hours of investment. Gurney’s Imaginative Realism (2009) gives a terrific introduction to the challenges – and freedoms – of painting from imagination and exploring composition.
Defining character and depicting realistic animal behaviour
‘Personally, I never think of a fossil animal as being dead, but always picture it in my mind’s eye as alive – an animated, breathing, moving machine, which stands, walks, fights or otherwise conducts itself after the fashion of a living creature.’
The depicted behaviours of animals have enormous effects on compositions, from practical considerations of their pose and arrangement in an artwork through to decisions concerning mood and atmosphere. At the outset of starting an artwork we must decide what our subject animals will be doing, and build the composition around that. It is very difficult, or at least very wasteful with time and resources, to start rendering a creature for one purpose, and then alter that purpose deep into the creative process.
Fig. 11.2 The many categories of animal behaviour – palaeoart does not have to be all about fighting and vocalizing.
Fig. 11.3 Three Sinornithoides youngi taking it easy. Extinct animals probably spent more time looking like this than they did as slavering, hyper-aggressive monsters. (M. Witton)
By far the overwhelming choice for many palaeoartists is to show extinct animals fighting, loudly vocalizing, and generally being dramatic and exciting. We can go as far as to say that this is a ‘mega-trope’ of palaeoart and, while it can make for arresting scenes, nature is neither as perpetually aggressive nor as dramatic as our galleries of such artwork implies. Animal behaviour is varied and nuanced, and though some of it is aggressive, other aspects are sophisticated, constructive, static and even mundane (Fig. 11.2). Indeed, the majority of animal lifetimes are spent resting, grooming, sleeping, foraging, bathing, travelling and so on. If we are pursuing scientific credibility in our work, our depictions of prehistoric animals should reflect this. Depictions of grooming or sleeping might initially seem like dull subjects for artwork, but imagining how some prehistoric creatures engaged in these essential day-to-day activities can be thought provoking, make for compelling imagery, and they are surprisingly fun to render. Moreover, depicting exotic fossil animals performing routine, everyday behaviour grounds them in reality more than a portfolio filled with images of grappling, squabbling creatures. Always remember that palaeoart reconstructs prehistoric animals, not prehistoric monsters (Fig. 11.3).
Fig. 11.4 How do dinosaurs and other archosaurs vocalize? Not by roaring. (A) Stages of a combined call and posturing display in a bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus). (B) Bellowing American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis) – note its closed mouth. (C) Rearing, booming and dodging display by emu (Dromaiusnovaehollandiae). (D) Stages of a fantastic vocalization by a tui (Prosthemadera novaeseelandiae) where the neck is extended, retracted, and arched continuously. Ancient archosaurs were probably just as behaviourally diverse in their communication strategies.
Fig. 11.5 Threat displays in dinosaurs. (A) Contrary to the common mammalian threat of rearing tall, many living dinosaurs, such as the weka (Gallirallus australis), depress their heads and extend their wings when confronting other animals. (B) Perhaps non-avian dinosaurs (such as Mamenchisaurus youngi) employed the same behaviour.
Much of how we communicate an animal’s behaviour is suggested by our choices of pose. It goes without saying that poses must conform to our understanding of functional biology, but there are other considerations beyond this. A major one is to not assume that human methods of communication and action were employed by our subject species. Behavioural and anatomical distinctions between ourselves and non-human fossil species mean our actions, postures and communication methods might be very different, and imposing human behaviours on fossil animals can erode their scientific integrity. Perhaps the best example of this is the common depiction of fossil animals – mainly dinosaurs – as rearing up to roar aggressively. This is something that we can relate to because we (and other mammals) inflate our chests, straighten our backs and open our mouths widely when vocalizing in domineering, dramatic ways. But no living reptile roars in a classically mammalian fashion, in part because their vocalization anatomy is different to our own. Perhaps the closest vocalization to a mammalian roar or shout is the deep, rumbling bellow made by a courting alligator (Fig. 11.4), but this is not made with open jaws: they generate these noises with completely sealed mouths. Among other reptiles, it is far more common to hear sharp vocalizations (such as bird calls and songs), hisses, and the sound of snapping jaws. Moreover, the body language employed by reptile-line animals is quite different to those we might employ. Aggressive birds, for instance, often stoop instead of rearing, lowering their heads, arching their backs, and sometimes raising their wings – a very different posture to our own threat displays as well as those inferred for extinct dinosaurs in many palaeoartworks (Fig. 11.5). Aspects like vocalization and posture are all but impossible to know from fossil data and we will probably remain forever ignorant about how species like Mesozoic dinosaurs communicated. As ever, phylogenetic bracketing provides our most defensible approach to predicting behaviour and vocalization, and helps us avoid anthropomorphic biases.
A further consideration for the aggression/violence ‘mega-trope’ are real-world aspects of genuine violent encounters. All too often, our violent scenes owe more to treatments of fossil animals in film and TV than their real-life counterparts, so we see ill-suited combatants, over-powered animals and extreme gore. Observing fights between modern animals show that many of these inclusions are poorly informed. For instance, while many prehistoric species are large and impressive, they were not immune to injury. They would almost certainly not pursue prey by relentlessly smashing through dense vegetation, ignorant of their personal safety or crippling injuries. Like living animals, it would probably be rare for fossil predators to attack animals significantly larger than themselves or the collective mass of their hunting party. Relatively small, weak, or otherwise easily overpowered prey is a much easier and safer source of food for living predators, and this was probably true of the past too (Fig. 9.9).
We can further note that animals do not perpetually roar and shout during chases and combat, and artworks where battling individuals are depicted screaming at one another are something of a palaeoart trope. Animals pursuing others, or being pursued themselves, have more important things to worry about than vocalizing: they are literally running for their lives, and their concentration is on avoiding escape (prey) or catching their next meal (predator). Even animals which are caught do not bellow and roar until their last moment. To the contrary, real animal predation is often distressing to watch because mortally wounded animals are not screaming in pain or panic, leaving their faces and body language to show shock and distress.
Fig. 11.6 Brontosaurus excelsus wrestling with their necks, based on contemporary hypotheses of the peculiar neck vertebrae of this famous dinosaur (Taylor et al. 2015). Ritualistic fighting is consistent with behaviour of modern animals, and a more credible way to restore prehistoric antagonists than no-holds-barred scrapping. (M. Witton)
Animal fights are rarely no-holds-barred gladiatorial slugging matches. Predatory species have strategies to efficiently immobilize their targets, such as attacking especially vulnerable parts of the body, using their greater mass or strength to restrict prey movement, or hauling prey into environments where they cannot easily fight back. Should these strategies fail and their prey obtains a tactical advantage, predators tend to retreat rather than face their prey mano-a-mano. Surprisingly often, save for localized areas of trauma responsible for their immobilization, prey animals successfully caught by predators can be largely free of bite marks and lacerations. Indeed, a brutal fact of real animal predation is that death is not the predator’s goal, immobilization is enough. Targeted attacks to critical areas, such as biting away chunks of legs, or disembowelment, are sufficient to bring an animal down, and a brutal reality of predatory acts is that many animals are nowhere near death when their predators begin eating them. Fights between animals of the same species also show targeting of specific body parts. This is sometimes because these bouts follow rituals of engagement, or else may reflect practical aspects of confrontation between two similarly-shaped animals (Fig. 11.6). Regardless of their catalyst, many animal battles see duelling individuals take damage in certain areas, not covered in wounds across their entire bodies.
Fossil behaviour need not always be reconstructed by analogy with living species: trace fossils, or associations of animals preserved together, leave clues as to how animals of the past lived and acted. Trace fossils might tell us something about the spacing of a group of animals moving in unison, reveal how animals sat and rested, or even give insights into complex behaviours, like nesting. Evidence of extinct organisms interacting are largely biased towards evidence of biting behaviours, such as damage to plant tissues from herbivores, bite marks and shed teeth left in skeletons by carnivorous species, or wounds inflicted from conspecifics in fights (Fig. 3.1). Other forms of wounds – technically known as pathologies – show us where animals were injured, became victims of disease or suffered other medical distress. Pathologies can often be identified to specific causes, sometimes even specific diseases, and gives artists insights into real events from Deep Time that are excellent inspiration for artwork.
Fig. 11.7 Sauropod herds in different compositions. These small paintings are an excellent insight into how varying point of view, horizon level and lighting conditions can influence a palaeoartwork. (J. Conway)
Fig. 11.8 An unfortunate Placerias hesternus and opportunistic Coelophysis bauri. The dinosaurs in this scene are deliberately posed to look curious about the large dead herbivore. (M. Witton)
It can augment the believability of a palaeoartwork to add a touch of individuality or other form of quirk to a reconstruction. Watching modern animals shows that individual species have their own ‘personalities’ and demeanour, varying in aspects of posing, behaviour and locomotory mechanics to imbue each species with its own characteristics. These are so readily observed in living species that they are often used by biologists to aid animal identification, and they are often listed in good field guides. We can take a cue from this to add subtle variations to animal posture and form to enhance the believability of a scene as well as make our art more memorable (Fig. 11.7). For instance, we might restore animals with slight tweaks to their typical stances. We can’t tell from fossils if some extinct animals held themselves a bit more upright than their relatives, of if they flicked their tails in a strange way, but some probably did. Maybe some walked with a waddle or swagger, held their necks in a distinctive attitude, or ran in a particularly energetic, springing fashion. Adding these minor speculations adds a lot of personality to our restorations and can boost the illusion that we’ve witnessed a real fossil species and not restored a set of anatomical blueprints. We can combine these aspects with speculations of superficial anatomy and colour to give our animals characteristic faces and appearances, too. For instance, subtly varying the prominence of the orbital region, jowls of facial tissues, the tightness of their skin, their amount of body fat and so on can go a long way to presenting fossil species with distinctive personalities and characters. Although speculative, we can relate these aspects to lifestyles predicted for our subject species by researchers. Small carnivores and omnivores, for instance, are well casted as bright eyed, hyperactive and curious characters, while large herbivores suit depiction as confident, if sometimes uncooperative creatures (Fig. 11.8). There are plenty of other ways that depictions of extinct animals can be ingrained with personality, and it’s up to us to decide what best suits our subject and composition.
Considerations of composition
There is no correct way to plan an artwork, but the most pivotal component of palaeoart is often the subject animals, so it makes sense to consider these elements first and plan the rest of the artwork around their needs. Key considerations might include whether our intent is to prominently show their anatomy, or if we are happy to share their focus with a more detailed, wider scene. The number of animals is a critical concern, as is their behaviour and spatial requirements. If a scene is set to involve some action or fast motion – which might pertain to anything from a body part (a flapping wing, a swishing tail) to an entire animal (a leaping or running individual) it can be helpful to imagine a few seconds of motion to determine the most interesting and plausible arrangement of characters and behaviours. The fact that a tail is being swished, or that an animal has leapt forwards, might not be obvious if depicted at the end of the tail motion, or when the animal is landing: we’re better at showing the arc of a whooshing appendage, or the push off and aerial phase of the leap (Fig. 11.9). Particularly when rendering energetic scenes, be wary of making animals too ‘engaged’ with everything going on in a composition – depicting an animal doing too many things at once is unrealistic, and hurts the believability of artwork. Having all animals turned to face each other, even if that means arcing their bodies and necks beyond mechanical limits, is particularly jarring. Once we know what our subjects are up to, we can consider how they are best arranged in an artwork to convey our intentions. This can inform our choice of medium, artwork size, colour choices and so on.
Fig. 11.9 The tiny, bounding reptile Scleromochlus taylori in mid leap. When portraying action, it helps to consider which point and pose will best convey the behaviour. Subtle depictions of environmental distortion – water splashes, kicked sand – aid a sense of motion. (M. Witton)
Fig. 11.10 The giant alligatoroid Deinosuchus riograndensis depicted in a subtle triptych, where trees divide the image into three. Here, this approach gives a narrative to the flock of birds, their travelling into the painting establishing a sense of distance and scale for the crocodylian. (M. Witton)
Many palaeoartworks need to incorporate some sort of landscape and we should consider the role this can have on our art. A lot of palaeoart has entirely flat, horizontal landscapes, often set low in the picture to maximize the size of the sky. These are appropriate for some environments, can be great for emphasizing the size of large species, and do not overwhelm the subject species with background. However, some palaeoartists make virtually all their work in this way, creating an ancient world which is topographically uninteresting and compositionally repetitive. Landscapes are not a ‘passive’ component of artwork: they can divide or unify aspects of an image, emphasize the size or abilities of our subjects, shape interpretations about a sequence of events, define mood, and bring aesthetically-pleasing structure to a piece (Figs. 11.8, 11.10). Simply varying a depicted topography slightly can make pictures more interesting to look at and enhance the character of a scene. A slope or small hill can make all the difference to the believability and dynamism of a restored landscape.
We should also consider what point of view our work will use. Modern palaeoart is often quite conservative in this regard, pointing the viewer at distant horizons in a manner mirroring our own typical perception of scenery. There are practical benefits to this – clarity and spacing – but it does not always suit certain subjects (particularly small ones) and can limit compositional choices. Positioning the view point well above or below the horizon, or rolling the point of view so that the horizon becomes skewed, is a simple way to create a more interesting perspective on a prehistoric scene and may allow for a superior view of certain animals (Fig. 11.7). Using unusual angles can be a great way to convey panic or drama, while vertical displacement aids developing a sense of scale (Fig. 11.11). Palaeoart that abandons the horizon by looking steeply down or up on its subjects are relatively rare, but can be very effective. Art without a horizon is more common for animals that fly or swim, but depicting them soaring or swimming close to the ground or seabed can give a great sense of location and purpose (Fig. 10.5).
The decisions we make about landscape shape and point of view influence virtually all aspects of the artwork – lighting, shadows, character arrangement, and so on. – and they should be considered early on when planning an artwork. They also influence a major, sometimes overlooked compositional aspect: mood and tone. Many classic palaeoartworks imbue a strong sense of atmosphere, whether it’s building tension between depicted animals, a palpable sense of the environment or conveying a foreign animal’s sensation of the world. Creating atmosphere is dependent on choices of character arrangement, landscapes, colour choices and lighting. The positioning of subject animals and plants, their relationship to surrounding objects and framing are very influential here, as is their visibility – both in terms of being obscured by other elements and their clarity of rendition. Dominant or regal individuals may be given pride of place in a work, uncluttered by other elements, while lowly or struggling individuals have opposing conditions. This is a compositional aspect that topographical variation can aid, boosting or depressing elements to different areas of the artwork to affect light and shadow, and draw or withdraw attention (Fig. 11.12).
Fig. 11.12 Shingopana songwensis takes the light in this scene of the Tanzanian Galula Formation. Other animals – the crocodyliform Pakasuchus kapilimai, other sauropods and termites – are in relative shadow, making the central dinosaur the focus of the image. (M. Witton)
Of related importance is the aspect an animal will be visible from; it can be wise to avoid drawing animals in nothing but ‘orthographic’ views such as directly lateral, directly frontal and so on. This is easily done as many of our skeletal references are constructed in this way, but we rarely observe nature in such a geometric way. This is less noticeable if only a few animals are shown in an artwork, but our compositions can look rather strange if entire herds of animals are depicted in near identical aspects. Even subtle deviations from orthogonal views can make our artwork much more believable.
When considering the placement of our animals, be sure to give them appropriate space to adopt a natural pose, and do not be afraid of some parts of the animal being hidden by its own body. Some artists seem to think all elements of an animal must be represented in an artwork, even if that means bending necks, tails or limbs beyond mechanical limits. It is not uncommon to see artworks of animals depicted in anterior view with tails flicked laterally, or vice versa for the head if the animal is viewed posteriorly. Often, this creates unnatural-looking poses or violates anatomical frameworks: often, it’s more scientifically credible and artistically sensible to simply leave some body parts obscured.
Fig. 11.13 Famous stem-mammal Dimetrodon boldly composed in shadow. The choice of pose means we can still understand much about this animal’s size and motion even though it’s only shown in silhouette. (J. Csotonyi)
We can also consider the impact that lighting and weather have on our work. Palaeoart often defaults to depicting scenes on clear, sunlit days, which is great for showing off details of anatomy, but perhaps at the expense of atmosphere. Low-angle light, strong shadows, rain and wind (which we can capture via moving vegetation and debris) can transform a routine illustration of a fossil animal into a more interesting and evocative piece (Fig. 11.6). When looking to impart atmosphere into an artwork, do not be afraid to allow aspects of characters or landscapes to be obscured by their environment or shadow (Fig. 11.13). Though it can be difficult to surrender parts of our hard-researched reconstructions to obscurity in this way, the results are often more interesting, realistic and compelling.
Colour is an essential component of mood and atmosphere, too, and one that rewards careful observation of the living world. Palaeoart set in well-lit, daylight settings allows for broad colour palettes, but limited colour choices can convey much about time of day and aid development of mood and atmosphere (Figs. 11.7, 11.9). They also free artists from the worry of developing fully realized colour schemes, allowing us to define animal colouration in highlights and shadow rather than with speculated colours and patterns. Even if not using a limited colour palette, colours should be altered to reflect lighting and distance. This might involve significant distortion to our intended colour schemes from their original concept, but the result is more believable art. If losing details of animal colours and patterns seems heretical, it is worth reminding ourselves that our colour inferences are mostly speculation anyway, so surrendering them to hues more consistent with the rest of an artwork is not much of a creative sacrifice, especially if the reward is more compelling work. Many of the most effective works by palaeoart masters focus more on using effective colour schemes than they do specific aspects of animal colour and patterning.
Cluttered compositions can be an issue for palaeoartworks. The fact that our artworks are mostly imagined allows us to keep adding elements – more vegetation, more animals, more detail – without directly contradicting any reference material. It is possible to make artwork underdeveloped, but – as a rule – less cluttered images are more effective, and more relatable to real wildlife encounters. In 2D art, particularly jarring additions are heads or other body parts of animals jutting into frame from margins or corners. These rarely – if ever – add anything to the artwork, and suggest a fear of space in the frame. To the contrary, a little breathing room in an artwork can augment the sense of scale and scene, and help draw focus to the subject.
Sometimes, palaeoartists can’t help but produce cluttered scenes because they are called upon to restore entire biotas – all the animals and plants known from a certain locality – as well as their palaeoenvironmental context in single artworks (Figs. 9.6 and 11.12). These are among the most complex and challenging artworks to execute because placement of so many elements – sometimes dozens of species which contrast enormously in size and habits – in a naturalistic way is difficult. For some such artworks, we probably must accept a certain artificiality in our work and treat it as more ‘illustrative’ than artistic. Our compositional options for these works are limited, and we must mostly treat them as deep, highly-layered projects with the smallest animals in the foreground and successively larger forms in the distance. Keeping the environment as simple as possible helps localize similarly-adapted species to parts of the image, and using inventive ways to place species helps spread them across an image. The upper regions of the artwork need not only be occupied by tall or flying species – a tree or rock face can elevate climbers, clingers and encrusters from the busy environments below.
‘Hyper-foreshortened’ palaeoartworks
Our discussion of composition has thus far assumed historically typical approaches to palaeoart – that the resulting artwork is going to look much like traditional natural history art, albeit featuring extinct animals. A popular alternative to this approach are ‘hyper-foreshortened’ palaeoartworks: images where animals are positioned in the foreground, often dynamically-posed and lurching towards viewers. By seemingly acknowledging the presence of the viewer, they strongly contrast with traditional approaches of natural history art and are somewhat divisive among palaeoart enthusiasts. They are a relatively new tradition for palaeoart, their genesis probably owing something to Robert Bakker’s dynamically posed dinosaurs of the 1960s and 1970s, which were placed prominently in the foreground, often articulated in extreme postures (arching backs, swinging limbs and curving tails) and centred around the viewer. Later artists, such as Mark Hallett, produced works in the 1980s where subjects are approaching, looking at and sometimes menacing viewers. In the 1990s, Luis Rey – surely the greatest popularizer of this technique – combined these compositions with extremes of colour, foreshortening and highly-posed, often aggressive behaviours to produce a style which has since been widely imitated. In some fields of the palaeoart industry, such as dinosaur film advertising, toys and children’s books, these highly posed, ‘extreme’ compositions have largely replaced more traditional approaches to prehistoric animal illustration.
Fig. 11.14 Walter the Berber skink helps us appreciate the impact significant foreshortening can have on perceiving animal proportions. (A) Though visually arresting, this tight, very foreshortened shot of Walter challenging to interpret: we can’t really tell how long Walter’s neck or body is, and his tail is obscured. (B) A less extreme view allows us greater appreciation of Walter’s shape.
Hyper-foreshortened works are attention grabbing, dynamic pictures, and seem to be very popular with merchandisers and young children. But for all their novelty, dynamism and outreach potential, it can be argued that they distort interpretations of animal proportions (Fig. 11.14), that they seem rather unnaturally composed, that they are prone to anatomical errors and – if poorly executed – they can look strange and even undignified. A toothy dinosaur or pterosaur might suit a composition where a set of giant jaws are thrust at the viewer, but application of the same pose to a small bird, a fleshy faced rodent, a lizard-like reptile or even long-necked dinosaurs – can result in art which is more peculiar than arresting. Such art is also particularly prone to condensing animals into odd poses and shapes to make sure their most interesting anatomies – teeth, claws and so on – are visible. The result is that some hyper-foreshortened artwork is not only strange to behold and behaviourally unjustifiable, but is also anatomically untenable. If so, they might not meet the basic goal of palaeoart: the creation of grounded, scientifically credible artwork.
The message here is not to avoid these compositions, however, but to consider how and if a subject species suits such posing, and the requirements of an artwork. Not all subjects or projects suit this pose. It is perhaps worth reminding ourselves of the value of traditional natural history compositions to palaeoart: not only do they offer more flexibility and creative options for artists, but they are less prone to errors, lend themselves well to ‘naturalistic’ scenes and demonstrating anatomical form, and they present just as much opportunity for generating exciting scenes as hyper-foreshortened compositions. Given that accurately showcasing the anatomy and behaviour of prehistoric animals is generally considered the goal of palaeoart, we perhaps should consider these the ‘default’ approach to a palaeoartwork, and restrict hyper-foreshortened compositions to situations and species which suit them.
Implying scale with unfamiliar animals
One of the most challenging aspects of palaeoartistic composition is conveying scale. How do we demonstrate the size of fossil species without use of modern references? This problem intuitively relates to the biggest fossil animals, but also affects tiny species. It can be difficult to make animals look anything other than averagely-sized without resorting to scale bars or including familiar subjects. The latter approach is fine for strictly illustrative work, where modern and fossil elements can mix without concern, but how might we tackle this problem when creating naturalistic ancient scenes?
Portraying large species
•Pale colours with hues tinged by environment
•Scene is not excessively detailed - sharp detailing tends to correlate with proximity
•Animal placed in middle ground, given room to show proportions and carriage associated with gigantic size
•Position in image helps sell size: animal is largest element in image
•Mature trees act as scaling elements
Portraying small species
•Colours are bolder and less influenced by environmental hues
•Finer detailing suggests close proximity to subject, while lesser detailing of background animals gives sense of distance
•Animals placed in foreground but still entirely visible, conveying compact nature
•Foreground cluttered with objects to give scale - rotting twigs, fallen leaves etc.
Fig. 11.15 Conveying scale is a great challenge in palaeoart, but can be achieved with attention to composition and colour values. Featured species are Dreadnoughtus schrani (top) and Stereognathus ooliticus (bottom). (M. Witton)
There are several methods palaeoartists can employ here (Fig. 11.15). The first is to take note of the general biological characteristics of animals of extreme size – many of which are already reflected in fossil specimens. Bigger animals generally have proportionally small heads and facial features, as well as large limb girdles and robust limb bones. Eye size generally scales inversely with body size, so do not fill the entire orbits of giant animals with eyeballs: much of the open space in their eye sockets would be filled with muscles, fats and air sacs, not eyeballs themselves. The muscle mass of giant animals, though relatively large, tends to be concentrated in specific body regions (Fig. 5.5) and, unless they are covered in particularly thick coverings of feathers or fur, the shape of their musculoskeletal form is often obvious through their integument. Giant animals also tend to be less sprightly and less able to contort themselves into strange poses – they are adapted for stability and support rather than speed and flexibility. Colour-wise, giant creatures tend to be drabber than small ones. They may have bright, colourful or otherwise striking areas on their bodies somewhere, but these tend to be restricted to specific areas.
Small animals have generally contrasting characteristics. They have proportionally large heads with larger facial features (particularly their eyes), slender limbs, less obvious muscle bulk and (depending on integument depth) their musculoskeletal form is often largely obscured by fur or feathering. They are also relatively faster, more flexible and acrobatic than bigger animals. Their patterns and colours can be far more striking, and there is less restriction of bright or striking colours to certain parts of the body. These features are most completely observed in modern animals but, so far as they can be compared, seem true of fossil species as well (Fig. 5.5). We thus achieve some sense of scale simply by accurately portraying the anatomy of our fossil species, as well as choosing appropriate poses, colour patterns and behaviours for animals of their magnitude.
Compositional choices can make or break a sense of scale. While there is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way to convey size, choosing certain viewpoints, angles and compositions will make this more challenging. It can be best to avoid hyper-foreshortening of the animal if conveying scale is paramount. As noted above, this style makes it difficult for viewers to understand the proportions of animals, and has the additional issue of limiting or omitting foreground space to place scaling elements. Where conveying the anatomy and size of species is important, traditional approaches are probably more useful.
Conveying giant size is aided by conveying distance between the position of a large subject object and the viewer, so those compositions which most readily imply space and distance are best for implying great stature. Mostly, large species look their grandest when positioned in the far- or middle-distance of uncluttered pictures, and when they significantly clear the horizon. Carefully positioned elements can help convey a sense of scale. Placing smaller items in the foreground can help the viewer ground their immediate relationship to the subject, while larger elements further back in the scene – plants, other animals – calibrate the depth and scale to the subject species. Be careful to make sure that scale items are not ‘obvious’, they need to be worked into a scene naturally. To really emphasize giant size, it helps if the subject is among the tallest elements in the image. Beware of clutter in scenes with giant animals as overly tight, busy compositions can dwarf and reduce the impact of large subjects.
Careful use of colour, a good sense of depth and intelligent use of space can go a long way to convey large size alone. Using paler, relatively low-contrast hues helps convey a sense of distance, and our colour tones and shadows should skew further towards environmentally-influenced tones when an animal is far away (typically blue for a daytime scene). Shading can also imply size: casting part of a subject in shade and the other in light shows that the subject is sufficiently large to straddle light conditions of its environment, a trick less easily achieved by smaller species in most natural conditions. Too much detailing on subject animals can diminish our sense of scale. Reducing giant species to paintable or sculptable sizes minimizes their anatomy to the extent that only larger features would be clear: major trends of colouration, deeper skin creases, and a sense of skin texture, but not its constituent parts. Only when recreating a giant animal close to life size would finer details – individual scales, feathers, strands of hair and minute skin creases – become apparent.
We can elaborate our detailing on smaller animals as we would be able to take in greater anatomical nuance when viewing these smaller creatures at paintable or sculptable sizes. Our colour choices can be more saturated and contrasting, and we might depict our subjects in more acrobatic and mobile poses. It’s also easier to use unusual views and attitudes when depicting smaller species because we are less focused on conveying a sense of distance between the subject and viewer.
Stylistic choices
‘Extinct animals cannot be restored with complete confidence or photographed… Paintings and other restorations should be just what they are, aesthetic and realistic illusions of how the subjects may have appeared in life. This brings us back to the boldness, the importance of combining colour, lighting, composition and action to create a work that may even verge on the surrealistic, but that is based on facts and possibilities.’
The style of a palaeoartwork – its approach to composition, detail, use of light, colour and so on – is often dictated by project demands: the available budget, the size of the work, its purpose, intended audience and so on. But where we have flexibility or complete choice over stylistic choices, we might consider not only what works practically, but what style best suits available fossil data, and what might make for the most arresting or interesting take on a fossil subject. It must be said that modern palaeoartworks are not especially varied stylistically. Most palaeoartworks from the Classic era have a painterly style, but artworks from the 1980s onwards have trended towards ever more detailed and linear approaches mimicking high-definition photographs. The latter has become even more popular as digital technology makes intricate artworks increasingly manageable and economical to produce. These hyper-detailed takes on fossil animals are now widely considered the apogee of modern palaeoart and are so common that we might consider them the mainstream style for twenty-first century palaeoart.
Fig. 11.16 Highly detailed palaeoart, like this portrait of Jinfengopteryx elegans, is an excellent means of communicating a lot of information about a fossil animal and its world. The life appearance and environments of many small dromaeosaurs are well understood and they lend themselves well to this treatment. (E. Willoughby)
Well-executed, highly detailed palaeoartworks are technically excellent and convey more information about extinct creatures than stylized or painterly approaches, and with a precision that implies comprehensive understanding of the subject’s form (Fig. 1.1, 11.16). But note that such approaches are not only technically demanding, they have several pitfalls that artists can fall into. The first is that the pursuit of high detail is prioritized over more fundamental aspects of the reconstruction, such as accurately depicting body shape and proportions. From a scientific and educational perspective, it is far more useful and informative to get these basic aspects correct than it is to have a picture with every filament, scale and leaf individually crafted, or to have photo-real skin draped over a poorly reconstructed body. After all, we can predict fundamental form more reliably than fine detail, and it is logical to make our work accurate where it can be. This issue is especially prevalent among less-experienced and non-specialist palaeoartists.
A second issue is that details added to paintings are often at odds with fossil data. The most egregious example of this concerns depictions of animal skin where integumentary structures are exaggerated to make them visible on giant animals, where skin is outfitted with entirely imaginary textures and features (such as depictions of dinosaurs and other fossil reptiles with banded, deeply wrinkled, elephantine skin) and, in photographic manipulations, the use of photographic elements that bear little resemblance to the actual integument of the subject creature. We must applaud artists who have the patience to render or composite these elements in such resolution, but the time investment represented by this detailing is wasted if it detracts from the scientific credibility of the artwork.
We might also ask about the appropriateness of restoring all animals to highly detailed or photo-real standards. There seems to be a perception that more detailed or photo-real takes on ancient animals are more ‘authentic’ than loosely rendered or stylized ones while, in reality, there is a limit to the amount of detail we can add to a reconstruction before resorting to inference, speculation and whimsy (Fig. 11.17). Depending on our understanding of the subject animal, we might know enough to execute a supremely-detailed interpretation with only slight extrapolation from fossil data, or we might be several artistic miles off that goal, and much of what we see in the restoration is inference and best guesses. In the latter case, every detail we add makes our work more speculative, and laying detail after detail to create a hyper-detailed restoration might take us beyond what could be classed as ‘reasoned’ speculation. Knowing how mimetic and influential palaeoart can be imparts a certain responsibility to palaeoartists, and this might include acknowledging that some animals are insufficiently known to permit highly detailed reconstructions. Is it wise, when the most fundamental aspects of appearance remain unknown, to render them as if we understand their anatomy in full detail? This question is becoming more important as our ability to interpret life appearance for some fossil species improves markedly, down to abilities to place each hair, scale, feather and colour with precision. Such species are truly deserving of hyper-detailed or photo-real approaches but, if our general approach to palaeoart is restoring all animals to this extent – even when must speculate most of the elements to bring our restoration to that level – we might be diluting the impact of hyper-detailed restorations based on genuine anatomical knowledge. The bar of scientific credibility in palaeoartistry has been raised high in recent years and – especially when producing art for education and outreach – we must continuously calibrate the compromise necessary in palaeoart to reflect what we don’t know, as well as what we do.
For species where some doubt still exists about much of their detailed anatomy, there may be some value in exploring aspects of style, colour, lighting and composition that reduces focus on raw anatomy and instead concentrates on the relationship between animal form and environment. Some works composed in this manner are among the most evocative, famous and timeless palaeoartworks of all. The classic works of Knight, Burian, and Henderson, for instance, do not necessarily show where one skin type grades into another, or how long fur or feathers were, and much of their subject’s bodies are covered in shadow, but this does not detract from their art; indeed, it might even account for their success. As noted above, viewers do not need to see everything about an animal to appreciate its form, behaviour, or attitude. Allowing viewers some room to interpret or ‘finish’ a reconstruction promotes imagining of fine details, even across successive generations of changing science.
Fig. 11.18 Jinfengopteryx elegans restored as inspired by eighteenth century Japanese art. (R. Groom)
Fig. 11.20 The most amusing picture of a terror bird (Titanis walleri) pursuing a capybara you’ll ever see. (J. Egerkrans)
Painterly realist art is not the only option available to palaeoartists. Stylized palaeoart – some recalling pop art, heraldic supporters, comic book illustrations, and even satirical pieces – is slowly becoming more commonplace (Figs. 11.11, 11.18–11.20). Given that palaeoart’s long history has deviated little from the styles typical of classic natural history art, the adoption of these alternative styles into its canon is welcome. There are probably points where style overtakes science and such artworks leave the realm of genuine palaeoart, but the anatomically informed art of Ray Troll, David Orr, Raven Amos, Rebecca Groom or Johan Egerkrans clearly lies on the science-informed side of this discussion, despite their stylization. We might view their art in the same way that we view animal characters in classic animations: though some anatomical aspects are simplified and exaggerated, they represent emphasized and augmented reality instead of pure fantasy. Reducing reconstructions and landscapes to simpler geometries, depicting species with various forms of line art, experimenting with limited or bold colour schemes and other means of pushing stylistic boundaries are adapting palaeoart to new media and demographics. It encourages artists and viewers to rethink aspects of reconstructions and composition, inspiring us to deviate from traditional styles and colour choices and find elements of form that truly define our subjects. Such work still credibly captures the morphology of fossil animals and, though drastically deviant from typical, realist approaches, viewers can still identify subject species and appreciate their anatomy and behaviour.
We might hope that palaeoart of this nature becomes more widespread and popular in years to come, especially as it has many practical benefits. It can be clearer when viewed on electronic devices or at small sizes, as well as better suited to merchandising or museum labelling than complex paintings. Moreover, it brings palaeoart to audiences who appreciate non-traditional art forms, as well as non-specialist audiences, without resorting to over-used marketing ploys like hyper-foreshortened images, or tropes of roaring and violence.
