Science - USA (2020-07-10)

148 10 JULY 2020 • VOL 369 ISSUE 6500 sciencemag.org SCIENCE

IMAGE: MARK WITTON

P

aleontological art, or paleoart, is ex-

periencing a veritable renaissance.

Before the pandemic brought public

events to a halt, the European main-

land was set to witness no fewer than

three exhibitions centered on this

genre within the span of a year ( 1 – 3 ).

Esther van Gelder, gu est curator of the

Dinomakers exhibition at the Teylers Museum,

attributes the mounting interest in paleoart to

an increase in cross-disciplinary fertilization.

“Firstly, we see a growing interest in general in

hybrid genres that combine science (especially

nature) and art,” she says. “But the process of

emancipation of paleoart has been going on

for some time now, and the generation that got

interested in paleontology through dramatic

new images of dinosaurs in the eighties and

early nineties is now starting to write books,

make art, and curate exhibitions themselves.”

Previously, reconstructions were rendered

conservatively, depicting extinct creatures

exclusively in postures and contexts that had

been confirmed scientifically. But such render-

ings often ended up emphasizing the excep-

tionality of past life. By contrast, recent pa-

leoart has increasingly come to underline the

similarities between extinct and existing flora

and fauna. What sets this new practice apart

is its embrace of the “known unknowns” and

its ability to recognize that more than one pos-

sibility may be worthy of consideration. The

resulting art is simultaneously more fantastic

and more scientifically probable than any-

thing we have seen before.

Part of this transformation can be traced to

a book published in 2012 called All Yesterdays

( 4 ). In it, the book’s authors toy with the un-

certainty inherent in paleontological recon-

struction, emphasize how much knowledge

could be gained by looking at contemporary

nature, and even satirize some reconstruction

practices. Paleontologist and paleoartist Mark

Witton describes the book as “a game-changer

for the current generation of paleoartists. It

BOOKS et al.

PALEONTOLOGY

Paleoart comes

into its own

A renaissance is

occurring in the way we

render extinct species

By Ilja Nieuwland

The reviewer is at the Department of the History and
Social Aspects of Science, Faculty of Science, Vrije
Universiteit Amsterdam, 1081 HV Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Artistic depictions of extinct species, like this Kulindadromeus, increasingly reflect scientific speculation. Email: [email protected]