For the previous part please go here.
Fig. 1: Paleoart-memes may even transcend interstellar space it seems. |
What many people may perhaps not know is that Barlowe also produced a fair bit of paleoart back in the day. Beginning in 1993 he began producing art-pieces for museum exhibits and also worked together with famous ceratopsian-researcher Peter Dodson on two books: An Alphabet of Dinosaurs and The Horned Dinosaurs (the latter I have yet to add to my collection). On his own account, Barlowe was originally reluctant to produce paleoart, not because he did not like dinosaurs, but because he feared he would just copy his idol Zdeněk Burian in the process (Barlowe 1995, p. 40). When he started doing it however, he saw that their styles were quite different, giving him enough confidence to continue. To this day his dinosaurs have got to be some of the most unique ones in the genre. We already looked a bit at his rendition of Oviraptor all the way back in part 1, but it is worth to take a closer look. What immediately jumps to mind is the intense coloration of the piece. The sky has an otherworldly coloration similar to Fantasia and the way our moon in the background almost looks like another planet is reminiscent of Burian’s painting of Iguanodon (see part 4). The dinosaur itself is, in typical 90s fashion, reconstructed in a Gregory S. Paul-style with little soft-tissue, giving especially the head a very skeletal look. That the piece ends up looking like an extraterrestrial on its home-planet seems to have been very much intentioned by Barlowe as he writes:
“When I brought my finish on this piece my editor loved it and exclaimed that it was as much an alien as it was a dinosaur. Considering my predilections, I found that comment enjoyable and appropriate. After all, dinosaurs, creatures from another world and time, are as strange and wonderful as any alien imaginable.” (Barlowe 1995a, p. 33)
And here we see a core-idea of not just Barlowe’s paleoart, but arguably his whole artistic endeavour: He is an illustrator and explorer of everything which is alien and extraterrestrial, be it literal or figurative. Prehistory for him is just another distant alien planet to explore. Some of his written thoughts reflect this further, such as when he imagines being in the Mesozoic that the intensity of the young sun must have been far stronger than today, as the world was still young (Barlowe 1995, p. 36). For the record: the actual opposite is the case, as the sun’s output has been growing in intensity ever since its creation (though on a billion-year times-scale so it would have been pretty much the same for us as it was during the Mesozoic). Thoughts like these about the prehistoric world seem to have been very much of the time, as we can find similar statements in works such as Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park (see part 1).
Fig. 3. Barlowe’s use of lighting is certainly striking. We also meet our old friend background-volcano again. |
To get back from this side-track, Barlowe’s dinosaurs become more fascinating when we compare them with some of his genuine aliens. Even though Expedition was made before his paleoartistic ventures, one can see very dinosaurian elements in his design-philosophy for the inhabitants of Darwin IV. One of the most well-known creatures, the Arrowtongue, has obvious similarities to a large theropod dinosaur like Tyrannosaurus. It is a large biped with a long tail, large head and no arms. To quote Barlowe himself:
“I really wanted this creature to be big and threatening, my version of what might have evolved along T-rex lines on another planet. The notion that what we were witnessing on Darwin IV was the evolutionary equivalent to the late Cretaceous era on our own planet was never far from my mind.” (Source)
Its smaller relative, the Rayback, has large dorsal spines growing out of its back, reminiscent of Spinosaurus. The sketch where it chases after a small flying alien has a notable similarity to an art-piece by Gregory S. Paul in which a Compsognathus chases an Archaeopteryx (See Fig.1). The motif itself has its origins in a Charles R. Knight painting of Ornitholestes. Further similarities are shared by the Pronghead overlooking its hunting-grounds and Barlowe’s Velociraptor doing the same. Giant aliens such as the Groveback and the Seastrider are drawn at similar angles to Barlowe’s later Ultrasauros to create an imposing feeling. Here another comment by him becomes enlightening:
“Gigantism is a big feature in EXPEDITION and, come to think of it, in all of my imaginative artwork. Obvious scale differences are a fun way for the public to easily put themselves in a painting and I’m sure that it’s that very element that so many find appealing about dinosaurs.” (Source)
What unites all aliens on Darwin IV is that they lack fur or feathers and instead have a rough, naked, elephantine skin that looks like it is uncomfortable to touch. Sometimes details of their skeleton are visible through their skin, making them essentially shrink-wrapped. This is very similar to the skin and soft-tissue that dinosaurs were portrayed with up until the 90s, especially John Sibbick’s early paleoart comes to mind (though notably Barlowe later drew most dinosaurs accurately with scales instead of elephant-skin).
On a last note, despite of how much Barlowe has embodied the APW Trope, in his art we can also find seeds of the trend’s downfall. He was especially not keen on monsterising his dinosaurs and tried painting them in poses usual for traditional wildlife art. Have you wondered yourself why the Oviraptor from above is about to eat a crab? Well, as Barlowe tells, he did not agree with the then still current view that Oviraptor was an egg thief (the discovery that the original skeleton was just a mother sitting on her nest was not yet made), as the animal looked too lithe and agile for a diet just based around that. Looking at the skull he imagined what else it could have been suitable for and speculated that it equally could have eaten crustaceans and shellfish. In the process he subverted a quite common trope in paleoart through a very well-educated guess. To some readers this may ring a bell. More remarkable is his painting of two Ceratosaurus. Instead of showing them in mortal combat with their prey, they are already lying besides a slain sauropod carcass, quietly digesting in the mild afternoon sun. In light of what happened after the 90s, his commentary on the piece seems prophetic:
“I am uncomfortable designing paintings around high action and I’ve noticed that this was rarely done in the last century. It’s this sensibility, this reserved quality, that I believe lends old animal paintings their grace and power. Lions, elk, tigers and the like are usually in situations of quiescence, drinking, reclining or stalking. No comic-book action or photographically frozen moments. At least not in those pieces I feel work the best. Dinosaurs beg to be shown in an exaggerated way, and it’s just that obviousness that I wanted to avoid.” (Barlowe 1995a, p. 32)
Given these rather modern views it is a bit unfortunate that Barlowe has not produced much paleoart past the 90s. Imagine what he would be able to do with all the modern discoveries, such as feathered dinosaurs. Or the creatures of the Burgess Shale…
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Related Posts:
Related Posts:
Literary Sources:
- Barlowe, Wayne: Expedition. Being an account in word and artwork of the 2358 A.D. voyage to Darwin IV, New York 1990.
- Barlowe, Wayne: The Alien Life of Wayne Barlowe, Beverly Hills 1995a.
- Barlowe, Wayne: Barlowe’s Inferno, Beverly Hills 1995b.
- Chatterjee, Sankar/Templin, R.J.: Posture, Locomotion and Paleoecology of Pterosaurs, Boulder 2004.
- Desmond, Adrian: The Hot-Blooded Dinosaurs. A revolution in Paleontology, London 1975.
- Dodson, Peter/Barlowe, Wayne: An Alphabet of Dinosaurs, New York 1995.
- Paul, Gregory Scott: Predatory Dinosaurs of the World. A Complete Illustrated Guide, New York 1988.
Online Sources/Further
Reading:
- Wayne Barlowe's website
- Vintageish Dinosaur Art: An Alphabet of Dinosaurs - Part 1 by Love in the Time of Chasmosaurs
- Vintageish Dinosaur Art: An Alphabet of Dinosaurs - Part 2
- Vintage Dinosaur Art: The Horned Dinosaurs by Chasmosaurs.com
- Fig. 1, top: Barlowe 1990, p. 26-27.
- Fig. 1, bottom: Paul 1988, p. 66.
- Fig. 2: Dodson 1995, O.
- Fig. 3: Dodson 1995, I.
- Fig. 4, left: Barlowe 1990, p. 18.
- Fig. 4, right: Barlowe 1995a, p. 40.
- Fig. 5, left: Barlowe 1990, p. 96.
- Fig. 5, right: Dodson 1995a, U.
- Fig. 6: Barlowe 1995a, p. 32.
- Fig. 7: Barlowe 1995b, p. 25.
> This fact shows how deranged the Alien Prehistoric World Trope had become by the late 80s/early 90s, as an artist was able to create a world that was so completely otherworldly and bizarre by just adjusting paleoart-conventions common at the time.
ReplyDelete...I see. So this isn't about celebrating and documenting the history of paleoart and how dinosaurs occupy such a unique place in our culture. It's just... complaining about how old stuff is dumb and new stuff is smart?
That... that can't be it. I have to be misinterpreting this. There's no way that something this elaborate and in-depth can so utterly miss the point.
Yes, I do think you are misinterpreting this. The point of this particular series of posts was not to make fun of old stuff for being outdated but to record a particular trope in prehistory media, the imagining of the prehistoric world as akin to an extraterrestrial planet, which I so far found to have been ill-defined and not well-documented by anyone else (maybe what confused you is the introduction in the very first post of this series, which was also the very first post of this blog, which was meant as a general introduction for the blog and not the APW-trope series in particular). I felt it was important to point out how this trope likely came about through cultural/religious backgrounds and how for a long time it was perpetuated and evolved rather uncritically, because, while it did make for visually striking art at times, it may have ultimately not been the best view of dinosaurs and their world and likely led to the rather problematic tropes that are still prevalent in the popular imagination and some paleomedia (and may have also been the groundwork for some modern fringe theories).
Delete"Deranged" was a poor choice of words in that sentence and to be clear, I absolutely love paleoart and outdated depictions by people like Knight, Burian, Barlowe, Paul or Bakker, but it is important to note that some of their art was not just a product of the science of the time, but was also influenced by general tropes and philosophies that themselves may not have been influenced by science but rather personal sentiments and movements at the time (for example Knight's anatomical mistakes were not just because he worked with now outdated information but also because he had somewhat of a dislike for dinosaurs, Dino Renaissance art looked distinctly mammalian at times to be rebellious towards older depictions and Barlowe, by his own admission, approached dinosaurs more as aliens than real animals). If me explaining this comes off as angry or accusatory to you, I apologize, because I did not intend it to sound like that. Admittedly I did adapt a sort of snarky writing style at times based off other bloggers and authors on the topics.
I see. Thank you so much for clarifying that.
Delete