Book Review: A History of Paleontology Illustration by Jane P. Davidson
Review by Sid Perkins
By Science News
The first artist to depict a fossil didn’t even realize he was doing so: The “tongue stones,” actually fossilized shark teeth, were natural curiosities thought by many in the 15th century to offer protection against illness and snakebite.
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Although artists have been creating pictures of fossils for more than 500 years, Davidson’s book is the first to comprehensively tackle the topic of how those remains have been portrayed through the ages. This richly illustrated volume follows the development of paleontological art from ancient woodcuts, etchings and paintings to modern photography and 3-D digital renderings.
Throughout its history, paleontological art has been suffused with a desire for visual realism and a careful attention to detail, the author argues. These characteristics lend the illustrations an aesthetic all their own, whether showing the fossils, the organisms or the environments in which the organisms lived.