Scan barcode
A review by lkedzie
Art and Science of the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs by Ellinor Michel, MARK. MICHEL WITTON (ELLINOR.)
5.0
The book is about the Geologic Court at the Crystal Palace Exhibition.
It starts with its inception and the biographies of the major personalities involved and its planning and execution. Some of the major players in the project (Owen and Harris) have experienced multiple crests and dips in the reception of their legacy overall, so it is interesting to see that interact with this project. The replica dinosaurs are the attention-grabber, but the site was much more than that, and the effort of getting the 'right' rocks alone is a story. And of course no plan survives contact with reality, so the imagined version of the exhibit was not what we got.
Probably. The events were old enough, and the records incomplete enough, that understanding how the exhibit came together and was constructed requires as much imagination as recreating the ancient beasts did.
The second portion of the book is about each of the creatures represented in the exhibit, looking to contrast how they were developed at the time and what the scientific consensus is now. This is the most striking part of the book, because it includes the Witton's artwork about how contemporary sources might imagine the same creatures.
Outside of the same interesting parts of the first section being reduplicated here, as the authors try and both decode the construction of the animals and detail some of the behind the scenes drama about the choices, the interesting part is those choices. We tend to think about the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs as being a primitive view of ancient life. But not only does their presentation represent a sort of advanced for the time interpretation of prehistoric life, the authors document the smart choices involved. Inelegantly, there was a lot of science that went into it. So each one represents a sort of micro-history.
The book concludes with a history of the exhibit from its opening, its treatment, both physical and intellectual, over the next nearing-on 175 years, and the efforts in preservation and restoration of the site.
The book is dense in the best sort of way, which is to say that it is full of startling and interesting facts. It is also full of centuries of paleoart and useful diagrams. Even only as a sort of coffee-table picture book this is worth it, and purchases in part go to support the preservation efforts at the site.
It starts with its inception and the biographies of the major personalities involved and its planning and execution. Some of the major players in the project (Owen and Harris) have experienced multiple crests and dips in the reception of their legacy overall, so it is interesting to see that interact with this project. The replica dinosaurs are the attention-grabber, but the site was much more than that, and the effort of getting the 'right' rocks alone is a story. And of course no plan survives contact with reality, so the imagined version of the exhibit was not what we got.
Probably. The events were old enough, and the records incomplete enough, that understanding how the exhibit came together and was constructed requires as much imagination as recreating the ancient beasts did.
The second portion of the book is about each of the creatures represented in the exhibit, looking to contrast how they were developed at the time and what the scientific consensus is now. This is the most striking part of the book, because it includes the Witton's artwork about how contemporary sources might imagine the same creatures.
Outside of the same interesting parts of the first section being reduplicated here, as the authors try and both decode the construction of the animals and detail some of the behind the scenes drama about the choices, the interesting part is those choices. We tend to think about the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs as being a primitive view of ancient life. But not only does their presentation represent a sort of advanced for the time interpretation of prehistoric life, the authors document the smart choices involved. Inelegantly, there was a lot of science that went into it. So each one represents a sort of micro-history.
The book concludes with a history of the exhibit from its opening, its treatment, both physical and intellectual, over the next nearing-on 175 years, and the efforts in preservation and restoration of the site.
The book is dense in the best sort of way, which is to say that it is full of startling and interesting facts. It is also full of centuries of paleoart and useful diagrams. Even only as a sort of coffee-table picture book this is worth it, and purchases in part go to support the preservation efforts at the site.