Palaeo-art Myths vs. Palaeo-art Memes

While discussing Andrea Cau's 10 commandments, in particular palaeo-art myths and memes, Andrea and myself made some points I wanted to bring out of the comment section.

Originally Andrea had been referring to palaeo-art memes as myths, and technically there is nothing wrong with that. The term meme is not necessarily universal (though it is certainly growing in popularity). "Palaeo-art meme"s were coined by Darren Naish as best I can tell (here, here, and here). I on the other hand had been calling them palaeo-art "type specimens" before that. So Andrea Cau calling them palaeo-art myths makes perfect sense. I'm sure there are a few other terms describing this same sort of palaeo-art practice.


Palaeo-art memes are the artistic phenomenon where one original artist creates their own version of something prehistoric. Other subsequent artists, due to a lack of other references (or just outright laziness) copy concepts or components of that first piece as though it was a direct source. Suddenly the prehistoric subject is always recreated just like that first artwork, whether that first artist was (or still is) correct or not. These memes can lead to errors in science understanding, communication, and education so they are important for all palaeo-enthusiasts to be aware of.

(Meme being a term coined by Richard Dawkins to describe how humanity had evolved a new form of self replicating, mutating, and reproducing information like genetics that was not restricted by biologic processes or forms. In other words ideas and information. Gene for genetic information and meme for human informational units)

However Andrea's name of palaeo-art myths struck me as a great name for a related concept. To me all palaeo-art (besides direct skeletal reconstructions) are a form of scientific mythology. Myths have always been a way for humans to answer key questions about the universe around them with stories. Science does an amazing job of explaining the universe, but can lack in the story telling department.

When we are bringing back creatures and worlds that were never witnessed by humans, there is a bit of a mythology in how we recreate them. Not made up mind you, but scientifically influenced story telling (the amount of science can vary on a piece to piece basis of course).

To me any piece of palaeo-art no matter how plausible or implausible, so long as it has some scientific basis serves scientific story telling purpose. Whether it gets us thinking about what we know or do not know, it is helping the science. So to me this mythology is not only inescapable but an important part of palaeo-art. Without it we'd only be recreating only skeletons.

The danger is when a myth is repeated without scientific basis. Any idea once is harmless. It opens dialogue and questions. An idea repeated risks mimicking fact through repetition. Hear or see something enough and you begin to believe it. With prehistoric creatures this can result in animals gaining appearances or behaviours that we have no evidence for of or worse disproved through fossils and research.

I give you a brief case example. The myth of the Ceratopsian Defense Circle, and how it has spun out of control into a full blown meme. It is so strong I've had kids try and argue with me about it while working at the Tyrrell.

An Initial Myth

I've grabbed this picture from here, but it is by John Sibbick

I'm next to certain the whole meme of Ceratopsians forming circles around their young to protect them started with a piece by John Sibbick. I have fond childhood memories of this one picture above from my copy of David Norman's Illustrated Dinosaur Encyclopedia. However Peter Bond and myself both think we can recall a similar circle piece featuring Triceratops in colour by Sibbick appearing in the Zoo Book series as well. Which ever came first given Mr. Sibbick's credentials in Palaeo-art not to mention the quality of the piece I'm pretty sure this myth started with him.

As a single idea Ceratopsians having a behaviour similar to a modern Muskox is actually quite reasonable. When Mr. Sibbick penned this piece in the 80's there was still a PR fight going on to champion Dinosaurs as social animals. This piece fits right into that philosophy.

Even today there is nothing outright disproving this behavioural hypothesis. There is though strong evidence implying this scene is improbable. The bonebeds of Centrosaurus that inspired Mr. Sibbick above, are being found in modern taphonomic studies to have been formed from the remains of herds hundreds if not thousands of individuals strong. Meaning that this small number of animals able to form a perfect small circle was not likely the norm. More so to me a group of thousands of animals probably would be more than able to ward off aggressive predators by threatening a stampede.

So while there is nothing wrong with presenting this idea in an artwork or two, there is certainly no reason for it to become a staple of Ceratopsian reconstructions. There has never been any evidence for it, and a slight amount of contradicting evidence in fact.

Mr. Sibbick did nothing wrong at all, and in fact did a service for getting us to think about possible specific behaviours in Ceratopsians. Sadly someone else unable to think or their own idea or worse deciding to just copy Mr. Sibbick gave this myth a life as a pseudo-fact...

A Meme Begins

Picture from this stock photo site maintained by the American Museum of Natural History sadly they do not credit artists or sources

I'm not claiming this particular piece above is the first particular copy. I have no idea when or where most of my following examples come from. I've ordered them based on my judgement of their quality or accuracy (so arbitrarily).

As you can see the quality drops significantly from the "original" Sibbick and these imitators. This is a big part of memes, they don't just copy the first (typically superior) piece but each other too. Meaning that if one of the meme pieces had gross inaccuracies others can magnify this issue when they copy the copy.

Picture from this stock photo site maintained by the American Museum of Natural History sadly they do not credit artists or sources

There are more than one type of artist who can become part of a meme. It typically depends on the subject they are creating.

For obscure prehistoric critters (typically non-dinosaurs) often there are only a few pictures out there. Most artists tend to have limited access to technical literature, and so research on obscure critters is very difficult. Even with literature many of us don't have the technical knowledge to translate the text into a visual. I personally find only half of papers have the types of photographs or diagrams useful to me in reconstructing the whole animal. Often then artists will look to any other restoration they can find as their references. Meaning these original source artworks become the template for that animal...

I consider these memes less negative. The intentions are noble, but the methodology could use work. Hopefully once we get the Palaeo-art Database up and running in the new year a solution to these problems will be found.

By Peter Barnett

However in the cases around more popular animals we often see more lazy motivations. Though not always on the part of artists.

Publishers often are the main source of the worst palaeo-art memes. Kids picture books in particular are a ripe breeding ground for such recycling. Who exactly is to blame? It could be the editor, author, and/or artist, and who exactly probably varies on a case to case basis.

This sort of memeing is due to new books only referencing other similar kids books as source material. Not just the art either, often the text and ideas are reused kids book to kids book as well mutating with each incarnation.

Picture from this stock photo site maintained by the American Museum of Natural History sadly they do not credit artists or sources

While I sympathize with those who meme with less common prehistoric critters, there really is no excuse with Dinosaur anymore. There are many great books out there written by professional palaeontologists full of update approachable information. If you must rip off someone at least make sure it is someone who knows what they're talking about (though really just go out and buy your kids Thomas Holtz's Dinosaur Up-to-Date Encyclopedia and put the big publishers Dinosaur books out of business :P).

So the take home message from all this.

If you want to create Palaeontologic mythology with a unique, whacky, creative piece do it. There is no harm in any idea once!

However if you want to recreate or copy an idea from someone else's palaeo-art, please do some research to see if the aspect you wish to emulate is based on science. While the first idea was fine in and of itself, if you add additional artistic "evidence" to an idea, it can take off like the Ceratopsian defensive circles and cause people to get the wrong message about the animal your recreating and the science of palaeontology.

The point of art is to be original and creative. Make sure that is what you are doing with you palaeo-art!

The Cylce of Palaeo-art Mythology

So I'm not quite done with Andrea Cau's 10 Commandments for Palaeo-art.

While I disagreed with many of Mr. Cau's ideas for palaeo-art guideline I left one of his points untouched. It is something we palaeo-artists (and really all palaeontology enthusiasts in general) need to consider when thinking about accuracy in palaeo-art...

This issue being palaeo-art "myths" as Mr. Cau calls them. Alternatively palaeo-art memes as Darren Naish calls them (here, here, and here), or palaeo-art "type specimens" as I called them way back when.

Palaeo-art memes or myths are the artistic phenomenon in which one original artist creates their own version of something prehistoric. Other subsequent artists, due to a lack of other references (or just outright laziness) copy concepts or components of the first piece as though it was a direct source. Suddenly the prehistoric subject is always recreated just like that first artwork. Whether that first artist was (or still is) correct or not.

In his commandments Mr. Cau outlined:

7. Thou shall not create mythology

So there is no confusion on his intended meaning, I provide you with Mr. Cau's definition of "mythology" directly from a comment he made on Stu Pond's post about the commandments.

"When I say "mythology" I mean: unsupported image/idea that the profane can assume uncritically as a scientific knowledge... Since a false/wrong/obsolete/mythological idea in a paleoart image can spread more rapidly than the correct scientific concepts in a (boring) paper, paleart-mediated mythology is very dangerous for scientific progress."

I think there are certainly some very valid points here, and I completely agree with the spirit of what Mr. Cau is saying, so long as the emphasis is placed on the "spread" of an incorrect idea rather than the creation of one!

To me the problem is not the initial idea presented by the first artist in a meme chain. They are not "spreading" a "false/wrong/obsolete" idea, as their first work was original and highly creative. I think the presentation of ideas, whether they right or wrong, is critical in all avenues of life (science and art included). The problem is when people don't check an idea, and as Mr. Cau astutely puts it "uncritically" "assumes" it to be true. This is how we get the "spread" of inaccurate memes, subsequent artists who don't bother to do their own research and rip off the ideas of others.

I'm sure the first artist could explain their rational for their choices. Whether you agree with their logic or not is irrelevant frankly. The point is they made a legitimate creative decision for a reason, and that to me is all that counts. It is the copy cats who when asked why they recreated subject X the way they did can only respond "that's what the other guy(s) did" who we should take to task.

That having been said we should be cautious in our attacks and witch hunting. What is accurate now won't necessarily be tomorrow. Suddenly all our current art could be seen by future artists as some "false/wrong/obsolete" meme. Further more if people through legitimate research arrive at a similar reconstruction, that is totally acceptable.

So where does that leave us when creating new works?

Should we shy away from creating palaeo-art that contain "unsupported" ideas or concepts? Hell no!!! So long as it is a brand new idea, and not something you saw someone else doing. If you are going off someone else's artwork you should also do you're homework.

In a discussion I had with Dr. David Eberth on palaeo-art and reconstructing deep time, he sagely summarized my whole view on the topic (in this approximate "quote" I'm pulling together from my memory...) "Palaeontology is a story based science. We certainly collect and study data, but at the end of that we need to tell a story for it to really make sense. This is both its greatest strength and its greatest weakness. No matter what story we try and tell, due to missing variables or information, we will be unable to ever tell the whole story."

This should be the true view on accuracy in palaeo-art. It can only ever be partial accuracy, no matter what!

The worry I have with focusing on preventing "false/wrong/obsolete" reconstructions and memes, is that we could end up creating even more dangerous myths. Those that are based on supposed facts!

I present a few case studies for your consideration:


My first example is this tutorial piece by Tomozaurus that is aimed at getting artists to feather Dromaeosaurid (raptor) dinosaurs "correctly". I do like his intended take home message, but sadly he frames this completely wrong.

Tomazaurus does fantastic work, check out the rest of his great artwork here, so don't misunderstand the rant I'm about to launch into. I merely take issue with the format of this poster and false impression it creates. While he may of used quotation marks around the word "real" to alert us to the conjecture he engages in about reconstructing a Velociraptor, I feel Tomazaurus (inadvertently) is creating a myth about what we do and don't know about this animal.

The problem are the magic red X's and friendly green check marks. These symbols automatically imply black and white right and wrongs. Yet those do not exist within our scientific knowledge of Velociraptor. I'm sure Tomozaurus meant the X's and check marks ironically or in fun, but speaking as a teacher, these two symbols can carry powerful assertions about absolute correctness (60% of my incidents with parents were caused by disagreements over marking! "X"s in particular can become quite contentious in subjective areas). They should not be used lightly, especially when discussing science!

My issue is there are not many actual scientific facts about how to reconstruct a Velociraptor. The level of detail and commentary we see presented here (especially about soft tissue) is NOT possible! I don't care how much secondary (and soft) supporting evidence there is for his assertions. The point is he is basically making up his Velociraptor as much as anyone else.

Using totally different animals (Microraptor mostly) is not proof of anything about Velociraptor (Microraptor is not even close to being a direct relative of Velociraptor within the Dromaeosaurs)!. All we legitimately know about Velociraptor is it had some sort of large feathers on their arms. That is it! Not even the whole feather, just the quill base stem they've actually found in the fossil record! Yes it makes for a crappy picture, the underside of the arms, but with this format that is all you'd be allowed to show!

Frankly there is absolutely NO science to say the "half-arsed" Velociraptor is incorrect (beyond the point about the hand). The Greyhound/lizard can be said to fair analysis, but this is mostly due to the outright terrible anatomy that doesn't even match the skeleton.

Whether he was aware of it or not, Tomazaurus was essentially attempting to start a myth here. The intentions were noble, but because it was based on half truths (we know Velociraptors had quill knobs on their arms, but not what the feathers actually looked like that alone how far up the body they did or did not extend) and misused science (other feathered therapods) this had the potential to become a super-myth of sorts. Something so plausible sounding (and maybe found to be correct in the future... but don't count your fossils before they are found) that we could start to believe it to be true (without fossils!?!)... Which is just as bad as totally incorrect information becoming a wide spread myth!

My other case involves the dismissal of the unfounded palaeo-art myth/meme of ceratopsian defensive circles (seen above as created by Peter Barnett). However through the case presented in debunking this meme, a new (and not true) myth started to take form...

Ironically this was by Mr. Cau himself, and really illustrates the dangers of trying to directly confront mythology. The issue of defensive circles was raised in the same quote I used earlier from Stu Pond's blog (backlink here)

"When I say "mythology" I mean: unsupported image/idea that the profane can assume uncritically as a scientific knowledge (for example, ceratopsids forming a ring around their youngs when attacked by predators).Since a false/wrong/obsolete/mythological idea in a paleoart image can spread more rapidly than the correct scientific concepts in a (boring) paper, paleart-mediated mythology is very dangerous for scientific progress."

Mr. Cau starts to (accidentally) create a myth in this different comment further down the discussion:
"We know a lot of adult ceratopsians in bone beds, but few juveniles (if none at all) are recovered in these bonebeds. We also know that most of the known dinosaurs had a social system with juvenile and reproductive adults that lived in distinct associations: these facts support the hypothesis that juvenile and adult ceratopsid did not live together... so, the evidence actually reject the defensive ring hypothesis."

In advance I'm certain Mr. Cau was speaking from the best of his knowledge. This is not meant to belittle him, or question his knowledge. Far from it, on subject of Theropods he is one of the best in the business! However theropods and ceratopsians are not the same, and I suspect he can only afford the time to casually read the ceratopsian literature.

As a fan of both Centrosaurine dinosaurs and Taphonomy (the study of how fossils end up being fossils) I am well read up on both topics. I can say with some certainty, that while what Mr. Cau says is empirically true (in the sense of the number of juvie specimens found), the reality of the conclusions he draws are incredibly incorrect! The reason being he has only (accidentally) presented a portion of the data and findings important to Ceratopsian bonebeds. Simply counting the bones isn't enough. You have to take into account how they got there...

If you are to read any of the many papers or articles in the Dinosaur Provincal Park volume on the Centrosaur bonebeds in Alberta by Michael Ryan, Donald Brinkman, and/or David Eberth you would discover that through taphonomic analysis we have found some pretty serious preservational biases in many of these bonebeds that favour larger bone material. Meaning, yes, we get mostly bigger bones from adult animals. Yet despite this bias we still find the remains of juveniles at these sites, which means there had to be juveniles there too. More to the point there had to a lot of them to begin with for the bias being unable to wipe them all the record!

The juveniles material we have found from (Albertan Centrosaurine) sites is so good we've pieced together very complete and comprehensive osteologic series for many Centrosaurine genus solely from material recovered from these bonebeds, as we had animals of all ages to reference. Why would we have animals of all ages together unless they were living in proximity? (though this is not necessarily supporting family groups admittedly, but it is not countering family behaviour either! It does disprove Mr. Cau's statement "juvenile and adult ceratopsid did not live together." Whether it was a family group or something less social, the point is they were living close enough together to end up dead together!)

What does this evidence actually mean? You (and the experts) can (and have) drawn (pun intended :P) all sorts of things from this (I can discuss the literature in comments if people are interested). I think it emphasises how much we have yet to learn on this (or any other) topic, and that artists have an amazing amount of flexibility for palaeo-art that still falls within the factually "limits".

It also emphasises the problems with sorting myths and the truth. Mr. Cau was speaking from what he knew to be true. Yet that truth was missing some key relevant information, which actually meant it was another myth... I hope you see the very real potential for a vicious circle we could find ourselves in worrying about myths.

So I caution us from going after the myths themselves.

Not because the myths or memes themselves shouldn't be snoofed out! Far from it... There is NO reason, despite the evidence that they travelled with their young, that we should depict Ceratopsians defending their young by forming a circle! Our evidence doesn't support it in any way (especially given the herds in question are thought to have been hundreds to thousands of animals large, not something that could or would need to make a circle for defense!)... It is really time for new visual thought experiments on Ceratopsian family behaviour if anything!

I just worry in militant efforts to eradicate myths, we'll create new strains of super-myth based on partial science/fact that will cause even more entrenched damage to palaeo-art than blatantly wrong ideas.

I think rather than target ideas, we target artists and entice them to create new and different ideas. If we all do that, there will be no "spread" of any one idea (wrong or right) as we'll all be generating new ideas and expanding the current state of palaeontology.

That should be the take home message and goal... No more memes or myths, because we're all being original (or well researched) art! (I say well researched as people can come to very similar conclusions with more limited subject matter)

Your thoughts?

(By Craig Dylke)

Andrea Cau's Palaeo-art Commandments

So I'm way behind on things I wanted to say in our recent discussion on accuracy in palaeo-art(funny how a move to Hong Kong with less than 4 days notice can really disrupted everything in your life... this is why I've been pretty quiet as of late if you were wondering by the way!).

I wanted to touch on a tangent of palaeo-art discussion from earlier this year that didn't really take off (which is due to the tremendous year it has been in meta palaeo-art topics!). These are the commandments of palaeo-art...

In his essay, Taylor Reints touched on the "ten commandments of palaeo-art" drafted by Italian blogger extrodinare Andrea Cau. This list of directives is intended for us artists, and they have sat somewhat untouched or discussed within the palaeo-art community beyond David Maas and Stu Pond.

I thought why not throw the spot light on the commandments right now. Do artists need such a code for palaeo-art? More to the point is this code the one we should be using?

In case you don't know the commandments here they are as translated as I could collect. The fact these were originally written in Italian is probably why they were missed or skipped by most. The original set that hit the net in English was very babblefishy, and many of the commandments were unreadable. Hopefully I haven't botched them too bad, and if any of our Italian readership could correct me on mistakes or misinterpretations in the comments that'd be appreciated!

1. Science is the source of paleoart




2. Thou shalt have no other reference than the living creatures, because they represent the only available animals; before representing those extinct you must be able to represent the existing




3. Thou shall not make an idol, model or inspiration out of any paleoart, and you will only be inspired by living creatures




4. Thou shall not call a work “paleoart” in vain




5. Thou shall honor anatomy and ecology




6. Thou shall not plagiarize




7. Thou shall not create mythology




8. Thou shall not create false reconstruction




9. Thou shall not covet thy neighbor’s techniques




10. Thou shall not desire to impress others

So there they are again. Soak them in and please do let us know your thoughts in the comment section or your own post (send us an email at artevolved@gmail.com with your essay on the topic if you're not a member of the blog). Are these the rules we palaeo-artists should all be following?

For what their worth here is my two cents... I don't think these are particularly helpful. They read to me as a desired rule set imposed by an outsider. While I can understand the motivation behind them, as the one who actually has to follow them I just don't like them at all!

I also really dislike the connection to the 10 commandments. Sure it is a cute literary reference, but I have problems with trying to connect palaeo with something so overtly religious. I'm also not a big fan of dogmatic rule sets. In my opinion THE palaeo-art rule guide should approach the artist like their a descent human being, and talk to them not at them.

Much like David Maas I had problems with 9 and 10 as an artist. Every artist I've ever encountered seeks praise and recognition for and through their work. Otherwise we'd hide it from the world and you won't know we were an artist! I can't see this ever flying in face of artists being some of the greatest attention seekers out there!

Number 9 might suffer from translation issues, but to me the not coveting what other people are doing or how they're doing it doesn't work. I'm going to be using the same techniques recreate prehistoric critters (painting, CGing, sculpting etc). Not being able to copy style is equally meaningless. How different do the pieces have to be? How do you judge? Why does it matter anyways? To me the issue is if I'm copying someone to the point where we're indistinguishable. In that case I'm plagiarizing, and that is a real problem!

Speaking of plagiarism, rule #6 is a pretty no brainer for any creative field (whether it be art or science or whatever), and I don't think we need to codify it. Those who are violating this rule are beyond a simple 10 step set of guidelines in their moral conduct in the first place, and we probably need to engage them a bit more aggressive manner.

Number 4 not calling something Palaeo-art in vain... means what exactly? This verges on scientific snobbery in my opinion. Being palaeo-art does NOT mean something has to be a scientific reconstruction...

Number 2 while I understand an infusion of living analogues is a good thing, misses the point. Fossils should be the number one reference, and the living animals should merely be additional inspiration. Looking through many of the palaeo-art memes that people complain about it is funny how most are due to the artist referencing ONLY a modern animal (here for an example)!Number 3 is okay, but again very preachy. While you shouldn't outright stick to someone else's reconstruction, taking some direction or inspiration from them is fine.

Numbers 7 and 8 I will tackle in my next post. I really am skeptical of this attempted paradigm for palaeo-art (as I'm sure you've noticed over the years!), and I think a proactive approach (rather than retroactive name calling/criticisms) is needed. This I will be getting to in my next post.

I do really like number 1, and it can stay (however I consider any picture or a Dinosaur, no matter how bad based on science if I can tell what it is supposed to be... it is funny how much even terrible pictures still get right)! Number 5 is also a reasonable request (though I don't know if I'd want to REQUIRE it of non-scientific illustrations... and people this can not be over emphasised, there are scientific illustration pieces of palaeo-art, but not all palaeo-art is a scientific illustration!)

These are just my thoughts, and totally feel free to disagree...

Philosofossilising: Want accuracy in palaeo-art? Do something about it!

This time ART Evolved's Craig Dylke responding to the question:

Just how important is scientific accuracy in Palaeo-art? Is palaeontology, and by association those who follow the technical side of the science, becoming too judgemental towards the artistic efforts of palaeo-artists?

This is an individual opinion on this topic. To read a number of different peoples' answer to this question click this link here. If you have your own answer, read the last paragraph of this post for details on how to get yours posted on ART Evolved.

Are you someone who wants more accuracy in modern palaeo-art?

If so, I want you to help us here at ART Evolved develop a new method for bridging the gap between the science and the art. The current tactics by academically literate people are not working with many palaeo-artists. So stop complaining about the situation or the art, and follow me through what will hopefully be a drafting of a new glorious future for more accurate palaeo-art.

I see the main reason (many) artists are ignoring (or missing) modern palaeo understanding is that too much of the important information from current research is contained (only) within the academic literature. While there are many great science literate people out there telling us artists this information exists, I don't feel they are going about it the right way.

Simply pointing out to many artists their picture is wrong, due to a certain paper, isn't helpful. Even if the intention is trying to helpfully get the artist to look up the paper. Many of us don't have easy access to academic papers (if you're not attached to an academic institution this can be quite time (or money) consuming. Time (and money) we could use for art). Even if we had the paper, many artists don't have the scientific literacy to precisely decipher the information from a full on technical document.

Artists are visual literate, and they will reference things in this "language". This is why artists often reference previous reconstructions, and end up copying mistakes from older palaeo-art. For more obscure creatures we can even find the genesis of palaeo-art "memes" (as Darren Naish has coined them) that can continue to crop up within the field.

To break the cycle of palaeo-art memes, scientifically inclined people need to stop simply complaining about them, and help us artists out in a way that is actually helpful! I think it is fair to say the artists are carrying out their end of the palaeo-art equation. We've seen an ever increasing number of reconstructions emerging recently. However the technical literature side of the equation hasn't properly adapted to the new situation of many amateur palaeo-artists not being as science oriented as one might hope (again for many of us this is a hobby we do on the side of our otherwise busy lives!).

If you are going to spend the time to call for accuracy, spend it constructively for all of us! Go grab that technical information out of the literature and translate it into a public artist friendly format!

Things like nitpicking reviews or full manifestos of rules for palaeo-art, essentially deconstructive responses, won't cut it anymore!

Instead go through your paper(s) of choice and write up a quick brief on what an artist should do or include in a reconstruction of *insert prehistoric critter of your choice*. We here at ART Evolved are aiming to launch a date base (whether it be hosted on this site, link to other blogs, or on a separate site) for such briefs/kits that artists can reference to get their reconstructions correct.

I think having something public and accessible, that we can point artists to, will be a far more powerful means of improving the base quality of all palaeo-art being created in the modern era. If we translate the technical language into artist language than people can start legitimately complaining.

We will do a more formal announcement on how we're planning to launch the database, but this shouldn't stop you from launching briefs for your favourite prehistoric critters!

ART Evolved member Matt Martyniuk (who is a very lucky individual being both science and artistically literate) has been doing an outstanding job of tackling papers and extracting the relevant information for a reconstruction on his own blog. Just check out how fantastic he took on Hesperornis' toothed beak and Theropod Wrists. You're brief doesn't even have to be this detailed as his!

The only problem I see with these briefs is the visual examples. Some technical people might be daunted by having to illustrate concepts. That is where ART Evolved comes in! There is bound to be someone out of our talented pool who would love to help you create the definative illustrated guide on how to accurately recreate your prehistoric critter.

So please don't just complain about the lack of science in palaeo-art, do something useful about it!

ART Evolved is very interested in other opinions on this topic, and would welcome your answer to this question. If you would like to enter an article on "Just how important is scientific accuracy in Palaeo-art? ", please read the brief criteria here, and send your essay to artevolved@gmail.com.

Philosofossilising- Is it Science or Art?

This is a reply to the question:

Just how important is scientific accuracy in Palaeo-art? Is palaeontology, and by association those who follow the technical side of the science, becoming too judgemental towards the artistic efforts of palaeo-artists?

This is an individual opinion on this topic. To read a number of different peoples' answer to this question click this link here. If you have your own answer, read the last paragraph of this post for details on how to get yours posted on ART Evolved.

This post is brought to us by guest contributor Taylor Reints of the blog Beasts Evolved.

I've never really discussed palaeoart, or paleoart, which is the art (or science) of reconstructing, restoring, drawing, sculpting, painting and even animating prehistoric creatures before. We do know, however, that paleoart is restoring prehistory, but its a subdivision of... what? Art... science... paleontology - all of these come to mind. Is paleoart science or is it art?

Science or Art?

The amount of scientific involvement, paleoart's necessities and criteria are all discussed here. It seems that paleoart is a type of science and should be more like that, being cut to the scientific edge of correctness and accuracy. When paleoart is associated with art, usually there is more inferred speculation or even just some fantasy drawings. I'm a believer in science-paleoart, for without science and paleontology what is it?

Speculation in appearance, behavior and even coloration needs to take serious consideration into the science-art of paleoart. Without accuracy, what would the purpose of paleoart even be? This reminds me of Andrea Cau's wonderful ten commandments of paleoart:

I - Science is the source of paleoart.
II - Thou shalt have no other reference to the outside of the living creatures, because they represent the first extinct animals, you must be able to represent existing.
III - Thou shalt not make any idol, model or inspiration from the past or living paleoartist, because only nature is your inspiration.
IV - Do not call a work "Paleoart" in vain
V - Honor the anatomy and ecology
VI - Do not plagiarize
VII - Do not create mythology
VIII - Do not create false reconstruction
IX - You shall not covet other technique
X - not the desire to impress others

It is important paleoart is not biased towards art, for what is the reconstruction without science? Stu Pond of Paleo Illustrata wrote an excellent post in April about the purpose of and what is paleoart. Two commandments surprised him, as well as many other people,


VII - Do not create mythology
VIII - Do not create false reconstruction

Mythology refers to inferring behavior and extra ornamentation. Reconstructed behavior, in my opinion, is fine and adds pizzazz to a paleoartistic piece. "False reconstruction"... you wouldn't place an Iguanodon and Coelophysis coexisting in a grassy field, right? That's the thing being described here.

Conclusion

There should be much scientific involvement in restoring a prehistoric animal. All of reality should go into it, in my personal opinion. There are various differentiations in this term's definition from artist-to-artist. I just like restoring animals with a white background, not guessing or inferring a lot. However, behavior can be inferred, coloration can, ornamentation... As long as its not too extravagant.

Taylor Reints- Coauthor of Beasts Evolved

ART Evolved is very interested in other opinions on this topic, and would welcome your answer to this question. If you would like to enter an article on "Just how important is scientific accuracy in Palaeo-art? ", please read the brief criteria here, and send your essay to artevolved@gmail.com.

Philosofossilising - Setting Criteria, Drawing the Line (David)

To start off with, everyone is right and everyone has the right. Scientists are spending great efforts at their own cost on outreach projects to educate a Hollywood-brained general audience, enthusiastic bloggers are blithefully propagating the f*cking awesomeness of dinosaurs, including the flying ones, and artists are duefully filling the full pallette of niches from bone transcriptions to viking-ridden, frothing-at-the-mouth theropods. Everyone has the right and nothing is being forbidden. Animated series are announced with Sin-City press posters and theropods pruned by the scissors of budget efficiency and yeah - its all in good spirit. No body is proposing a prohibition of featherless raptors. But the cooler the medium the more convinced will be the generations that come, and the more futile the efforts of the scientists that consulted the film that - hey, they did have feathers and they belong within a lineage that includes the ancestors of our modern birds.

Apologies & Accomodations

Craig pleads for leniency, Glendon defends the freedoms of paleoart from tut-tutting scientists and Pete also seems to be excusing inaccuracies. At the risk of sounding harsh: why? Why should artistic license have such priority over hard-earned, tested and double-tested knowledge of likelihood and probability? Why should those of us interested in taking the long road to understanding and communicating the riddling complexities and inconsistencies, the fascination of interlinked ecosystems and 3rd or 4th level deduction of probabilities be extra accommodating to those whose interests don't go much beyond a kick-ass T-Rex?

I'm more than willing to accept the issue as a matter of wording: I'll happily surrender the term paleoart to a realm of anything-goes artistic freedom. Or at least part of me would... the other part of me recognizes how long the battle would be to establish whatever new term then stands for the same thing in the minds of a public disinterested in differentiations and shades of gray. But okay - I'm willing to talk palaeontography (explain that to your grandma) or paleo-illustration. But I suspect this path leads to an elitist ghetto of those in the know talking down to the enthusiastic plebes.

The goal has to be to transfer the kick-assedness from the brand names of roaring T-rexes and rearing sauropods to the encompassing processes of knowledge and respect. An uphill path, but the only one that leads to an inclusion of the masses on a basis of shared knowledge. All the downhill paths lead to frustrated enclaves and endless diaper-changes - poo-pooing the stubborn, and yes - talking down to people because they're simply not interested in the basic premise of paleontology. Dinosaurs are not organic Transformers. They were not created to sell merchandise or satisfy your creative urge. Being a dinosaur freak obliges one to a passion about the natural sciences as a whole, and ultimately to a respect for the systems within the planet we live on. Point.

Webster says...

Peter referenced ‘accuracy’ as meaning “the condition or quality of being true, correct, or exact; freedom from error or defect.” More or less an absolute state, as there is no perfection in the real world. Interestingly, plausibility is defined as having an appearance of truth or reason; seemingly worthy of approval or acceptance; credible; believable. The definition is all shades of gray, reeking of questioned authority: well-spoken and apparently, but often deceptively, worthy of confidence or trust: a plausible commentator.

That actually appeals to me... we're creating images that are worthy of trust but not above questioning, and ultimately, knowingly wrong. New discoveries will prove them so, but the images will still be admired as historical documents and - if we manage to climb to the heights of the form, still ooze fascination.

Philosofossilising- Scientific Accuracy in Art (Peter)

This is an individual opinion on this topic. To read a number of different peoples' answer to this question click this link here. If you have your own answer, read the last paragraph of this post for details on how to get yours posted.

There is no such thing as ‘scientific accuracy’ in paleoart.

“My raptors has larger feathers on it’s arms, so it is sooo much more accurate than your feathered raptor!”

We’ve heard this before.   

But consider this.  Dictionary.com defines ‘accuracy’ as “the condition or quality of being true, correct, or exact; freedom from error or defect.”   

The wonderful creatures that paleoartists reconstruct are unfortunately often extinct, leaving us unable to ever really know exactly what these critters looked like when alive.  We will never know exactly what colour scales dinosaurs had, what their mating behaviours were, or how fluffy a velociraptor’s coat was…   

It is really disappointing to realize that we will never know exactly how these creatures looked and behaved.  We will never know what is true, correct or exact.  Unless time travel becomes possible (I’m working on it), we will never know that truth.  As artists, our reconstructions will never be free from error or defect.  This is just the reality we must accept.  It's too bad, your paleoart will never be scientifically accurate.

What we as paleoartists can do is work towards a ‘temporal accuracy’ – the condition of being as true, as correct, or as exact as the current scientific research shows.  This is not striving for absolute correctness, because absolute correctness is impossible.  It is to strive to be as correct as current popular science dictates. 

This means that now in 2011, it is temporally accurate for all duckbilled hardosaurs to walk with its tail off the ground.  It also means that in 1905, Charles Knight’s tail-dragging Trachodon is also temporally accurate.  In Knight’s time, the upright pose (and even the name) was scientifically accepted as true.

 (from wikipedia)

And what of our young artists bickering over whose art is more scientifically accurate?  Well, neither is.  As we will sadly never know what is actually absolutely accurate, these artists have to accept that they are both temporally accurate. 

So stop bickering, do your homework, and make some art.  With the Internet connecting the billions, there is no better time to take part and join in the fun.

ART Evolved is very interested in other opinions on this topic, and would welcome your input.  If you would like to submit an article about Scientific Accuracy in Art, please read the brief introduction here, and send your essay to artevolved@gmail.com.

Philosofossilising- Scientific Accuracy in Art

Dinosaur Revolution artist Pete Von Sholly has had enough of the uninformed preemptive criticism that the show has been taking a month before the full program airs. You can read his "rants" (more like very restrained polite counters to the nay saying) here, here, and here.

By Pete Von Sholly

This is just the latest criticism against artists by scientific "purists" I have noticed going on around the web lately. While the majority have been against "amateur" artists, seeing it now extending to professionals I think this is a very interesting and important topic we examine on this site.

What do you think? Is palaeontology, and by association those who follow the technical side of the science, becoming too judgemental towards the artistic efforts of palaeo-artists?

While it can be agreed that many artistic reconstructions often include many inaccuracies (some well known, others contained only in technical articles), how certain are we that our current understanding is absolute? Is the line between accuracy and inaccuracy as black and white as it is conveyed by advocates of the technical literature. Or is accuracy merely a probability drawn from our current understanding, and that this probability could easily dwindle with future research and discovery (just as our old understandings of the past 150 years have?). So how accurate is palaeontologic accuracy (or for that matter palaeontologic inaccuracy)?


So expect some posts, and hopefully a series of ARTicles about this issue. We would very much like to read your thoughts on this topic. If you would like to write an essay to be seen on ART Evolved, but aren't a member of this site let us know at artevolved@gmail.com, and we'll make it happen!

Above all definitely let us know your thoughts in the comment sections of this post, and future ARTicles on this issue.