Palaeoartist Andy Frazer explains how he brings dinosaurs back to life from an artistic perspective in this week’s article celebrating 200 years of dinosaurs.
Sketch of the head of Megalosaurus. Image by Andy Frazer.
Palaeoart is a somewhat strange discipline. It combines both art and science, creativity and academic rigour. Put simply, Palaeoart is the depiction of extinct animals, in the form of drawing, painting and sculpture, and is informed by the best available scientific evidence. That available evidence is, of course, always changing and improving, meaning that our depictions of these animals can never be definitive. Indeed the field of palaeontology sometimes moves so quickly that a piece of palaeoart can be outdated before the paint has even dried!
With a very few exceptions, our understanding of extinct species is fragmentary. Complete skeletons are rare, and evidence of soft tissue, skin and feathers is even rarer. For all that we know about these animals, there will always be a whole lot more that we do not, and probably cannot ever know. Given that degree of uncertainty, how does a palaeoartist like me approach a new reconstruction? In the first instance, it always begins with the bones. Just a few years ago this would have meant gaining access to a museum’s fossil collection. Today, however, there is a wealth of data available online, including detailed photographs and descriptions of the bones and, increasingly, 3D scans. These enable the artist to study their subject from any angle, and in greater detail than ever before. The bones can tell us a lot about the life-appearance and behaviour of an animal - for example the forward-facing eye sockets, sharp teeth and pronounced muscle-attachment points that are identifying characteristics of a powerful predator. But there is also much that they can’t tell us. In most instances the fossil gives no indication of colour, skin texture, or whether the animal had a coat of feathers, for example. By looking at other closely-related ancestors and descendants, we can begin to develop some informed ideas of how the animal may have looked (a technique called phylogenetic bracketing). Similarly, we can look at modern day animals that inhabit similar environments and ecological niches and take some cues from their appearance and behaviour.
Life reconstruction of Megalosaurus. Image by Andy Frazer.
That is the scientific side of palaeoart, and it enables us to produce reconstructions which represent our best understanding of a species, given the available data. But, at least to my mind, palaeoart should be more than just a technically accurate depiction of an animal. Art has the ability to excite, inspire, and provoke. Good palaeoart should do all these things. It should challenge old ideas about what these creatures looked like and it should present them in ways that the audience hadn’t previously considered. The fact that we can’t know everything about an extinct species is something to be embraced: those unknowns are where the real excitement, and the real art can be found. In my work, I always try to introduce a few unexpected elements - bright colours, elaborate plumage and other ornamentations which abound in the natural world today. Of course, everything must be guided by the science, but there is still plenty of room for creative speculation. This speculation is valuable for two reasons. Firstly, colourful and unexpected reconstructions are always a great way to engage a non-expert audience and so encourage them to look more deeply into a subject. Most people’s first contact with dinosaurs is via books, film and online media, and the more exciting this is, the better - for them and for the future of palaeontology. Secondly, speculative palaeoart provokes debate. Even a reconstruction which you may not like or agree with can still prompt you to ask questions, challenge assumptions, and so ultimately lead to a better understanding of that animal.
The field of palaeontology is incredibly fast moving. The past decade has seen a wealth of new fossil discoveries, and new investigative techniques which allow us to gather more information from those fossils than anyone would have thought possible just a few years ago. The challenge for the palaeoartist is to keep pace with these developments, and to portray the incredible diversity, beauty and strangeness of ancient life on our planet.
You can find more of Andy’s work here: https://www.andyfrazer.com/
Associate Professor in Palaeobiology
Staff profile for Dr Stephan Lautenschlager, Lecturer in Palaeobiology in the School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Birmingham.
