Speculative Taxidermy

108DIORAMAS drags us down from the pedestal of classical rhetoric to the dystopian realism of the final stages of consumerist d ...

DIORAMAS109 art points directly to this tie between language and realistic representa- tion, thereby questioning the indexical ...

110DIORAMAS Realism is a complex and elusive term, constantly shifting in differ- ent disciplines, time periods, and media. The ...

DIORAMAS111 modern age. The new regimes of visibility that emerged at this time were in fact no longer the private domain of th ...

112DIORAMAS symbolically bridged distances between Europe and far continents that most visitors would never experience in perso ...

DIORAMAS113 naturalist, pioneered taxidermy dioramas. His setups did not include painted backgrounds, but they situated the mou ...

114DIORAMAS deriving from different traditions of representation and display. These windows into nature included elements appro ...

DIORAMAS115 cally posed actors, brought the three-dimensional illusionism of the pre- sepe to life scale, reaching unprecedente ...

116DIORAMAS between the mediation imposed by the traditional means of representa- tion, such as sculpture and painting, and the ...

DIORAMAS117 new modes of visual consumption based on the widespread circulation of relatively affordable reproductions. This ce ...

118DIORAMAS and dispersed. The presumed veridicality of the photographic image, which in semiotic terms is called indexicality, ...

DIORAMAS119 lifelike value that scientific taxidermy was expected to embody. And here lies the main reason why taxidermy, despi ...

120DIORAMAS western man had been expelled.^37 Man’s “having been there” must be con- cealed and cannot be mirrored in the start ...

DIORAMAS121 cunningly said that dioramas should offer a “peep-hole in the jungle,” aptly reassessing the spatial conceptions of ...

122DIORAMAS or less accomplished appropriations from the canon of classical paint- ing.^46 Photography’s ability to allow natur ...

DIORAMAS123 LIFELIKE OR DECORUM? We have thus far assessed that realism played a key role in the epistemo- logical work of taxi ...

124DIORAMAS Although Leonardo dissected and recorded what he learned in his private notebooks, when it came to painting, the li ...

DIORAMAS125 manipulative operations proposed by neoclassical art, such as modera- tion, restraint, harmony, and balance between ...

126DIORAMAS application in the human form, or in artifacts. Decorum was the enno- bling factor in realistic, classical represen ...

DIORAMAS127 displayed by white, civilized individuals.^71 Likewise, decorum defined the essential traits involved in being a la ...