When
you gaze upon this work, what comes to mind? Regality? Grace? Honor? Power? Perhaps elegance?
These are all the correct thoughts to have as you gaze upon my aunt’s custom
portrait of my Mexican Spiny Tailed Iguana, Julia. It's truly a magnificent piece that I am lucky to have hanging in my apartment. Now, it's going to be difficult to analyze a masterpiece like this when I myself am only an amateur in the ways of Photoshop, but I'll give it my best try.
Alright, the jig's up; I was kidding. I won’t actually analyze that portrait (as funny as it would be, I gotta get those 10 points). Instead, I’ll be discussing this painting (1787) by George Glazer.
I think it illustrates quite
well how off people’s perception of reptiles, and foreign animals in general,
were at the time. When I look at this painting and see the crocodile's stupidly
tiny head and weirdly giant limbs, it makes me grateful to have the internet
as well as quick access to photos of the herps we discuss in class. Beyond
that, just look at Twitch’s most popular emote:
It's hard to even avoid seeing vividly detailed photos of herps now that we have the internet!
But I digress. The misconceptions of the past seem funny now, but in
those times, it was the only frame of reference many people had. It’s a lot easier
now, but conjuring accurate depictions of creatures from only a set of partial
skeletal remains, or one solitary sighting from far away, was a herculean task
back in the day, and do I respect that although this image of a crocodile is a
bit disfigured and janky, it still gets the point across. I mean, I couldn’t
draw one better than this even with the technology we have now!
So, in an absurd way, I find it just a little bit
impressive. And even if you don’t, at the very least you can get a laugh out of
it. What more can you ask of art than that?
1 comment:
Natural history illustrations from the era of colonialism are fascinating. As you mention, they were often drawn based on limited information. In addition to dead specimens, captive animals were a frequent subject. In this illustration, I'm most struck by the odd posture of the crocodile - the erect head and neck seem out of place with the sprawling forelimbs and the oddly crouched hindlimbs.
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