Vintage Dinosaur Art: All About Dinosaurs

While it's exciting enough to get my mits on a book as genuinely vintage as All About Dinosaurs (1953), that this book was written by the legendary Roy Chapman Andrews is an extra special treat. This is a book that's part palaeontology lesson, part autobiography, with Andrews unable to resist relaying a few tales of derring-do. Illustrations are provided by Thomas W Voter, and essentially live up to expectation - these are the tail-dragging, slothful, reptilian flesh-barges of old, the 'great fossil lizards' that now seem as long-dead as the real beasts that inspired them. Oh yes, and a certain sauropod is stubbornly referred to as "Brontosaurus".

While the cover depicts a theropod that is presumably Allosaurus (based purely on the fact that it has three fingers and is quite large, which is enough to go on for most books of the period), Sexy Rexy manages to appear twice before the title page. The cover's pretty enough, but it certainly can't match the Tyrannosaurus v Triceratops piece below for visual impact - the composition effectively emphasising the towering height of old-school Nonsense Rexy, who seems to be chuckling quietly to himself. I love the palm trees, too - it seems that we rarely see strong winds in palaeoart, and they add that extra dash of drama. Poor Triceratops ends up looking rather lumpen and misshapen here, rather than a well-matched opponent a la Knight. One can't help but imagine the T. rex rolling it along with one foot like a barrel.

The book's second T. rex illustration is a more straightforward depiction of the animal in lateral view (or everything but the tail, anyway), and seems to be inspired by the old T. rex mount at the American Museum of Natural History. An amphibious (or, let's be fair, just swimming) sauropod adds some interest. But we all know what we're here to see.

Deadly dinosaur duels! Rather than play fair and pick on something with its own pointy things with which to defend itself, Rexy here sinks his teeth into "fat, hulking" "Trachodon", the unfortunate, web-handed fodder du jour. Still, the flipper-fingered one does at least put up something of a fight, albeit a half-hearted one:

"There is frantic thrashing for a time as the colossal beasts roll in the slippery muck. Then the Trachodon lies still. Its head hangs loosely, almost severed from the neck by six-inch teeth."

Ouch. Still, what a way to go - at the waggling atrophied forelimbs of "the most terrible creature of destruction that ever walked upon the earth!" (Don't be silly, Roy - everyone knows that's humans. Yeah, take that, conspecifics!)

Just lovely stuff. You can't beat an old-fashioned, salivating description of reptilian behemoths having at it, even if the illustrations are a little more convincingly bloody these days.

Happily, hadrosaurs aren't just depicted as an easy lunch in All About Dinosaurs. As is typical of a mid-20th-century work, they are imagined to have been amphibious and depicted as such, with their crests imagined as aqualungs (a concept so screamingly silly, only a pre-1960s palaeontologist could possibly have thought of it). The creatures do suffer a little from the 'gangly dork hadrosaur' meme that was popular into the 1970s, but I do still love the depiction of Corythosaurus contentedly doggy-paddling its way through a lake (below). There's some great characterisation going on here too - it's possible to sense the furtiveness of the foreground individual, frond in beak, as it glances to the shores where tyrannosaurs might be lurking.

If there is one creature that looks truly, irredeemably derpy, even for the standards of the time (forget not the great work of Burian), it is this unfortunate slug-bottomed monstrosity masquerading as ornithopod pin-up Iguanodon. On the other hand, I have the strangest feeling that this illustration has been 'inspired' by another, although I can't find it for the life of me; reader assistance would be most welcome.

While Stegosaurus fares considerably better in the illustration department, it is once again the recipient of much mockery aimed at its apparent brainlessness. Speculating on why the dinosaurs went extinct, Andrews posits that their tiny brains may have played a part; after all,

"In Stegosaurus, which must have weighed four or five tons, the brain was no larger than that of a small kitten. With such a brain, the animal could barely eat and sleep and muddle through life. The Thunder Lizard  and the other great sauropods were not much better off in brain capacity."

While it's fun to have a giggle at what are to us, all the way over here in Space Year 2014, amusingly outmoded concepts, it's worth noting that Andrews, unlike his contemporaries, did not view dinosaurs as evolutionary failures. In fact, he is dismissive of the notion that dinosaurs were the victim of "racial senescence", or basically just being too long-in-the-tooth (so to speak), and is quick to point out that a panoply of animal clades snuffed it at the end of the Cretaceous, not just dinosaurs.

Of course, a refusal to accept that dinosaurs were the result of Evolution's Difficult Middle Years doesn't prevent Andrews from occasionally being a bit unkind toward them, albeit in a rather tongue-in-cheek manner. This is perhaps best exemplified in the caption for the illustration below, which happens to depict a creature named after him. In the text, Andrews describes P. andrewsi thusly:

"...he was one of the ugliest of all the small dinosaurs. His short, toad-like body seemed to be mostly head. A piece of bone from the frill projected downward on each side of his face. It looked like a long wart. His short legs were badly bowed. The tail was fat and thick. He crawled on his belly. No leaping or running for him...No, I can't be proud of his looks."

Andrews' delicious description of Protoceratops, in addition to Voter's accompanying illustration, probably helped cement the image of the ceratopsian as a sprawling fatty even into the 1990s.  Modern depictions are rather different, but Andrews' unflattering portrait of the animal still raises a smile.

Of course, Andrews is keenest on mentioning Protoceratops in connection with eggs - he was the man who famously discovered the first dinosaur eggs, after all. Unfortunately, Voter's Protoceratykes are quite terrifying - rather than lacking frills (as Andrews describes them), their faces appear to be entirely frills, with eyes and a beak bolted on. The foreground individual reminds me of Mr Sweet from the Doctor Who episode The Crimson Horror. That beak...brrrr.

Next time: more Andrews/Voter! Hooray.

Down on the farm

What is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare at huge, grotesque models of extinct animals? When people ask me why I am willing to wade through hordes of screaming rugrats in order to gaze upon such eyesores, I only have to point them to the famous poem that Wordsworth didn't write. And with that in mind, Niroot and I recently took a trip down to Godstone Farm in Surrey (that's in the south east of England, for all you forrins) to check out their newly-purchased menagerie of monstrosities.

(All photos by me, unless they're by Niroot, in which case they're marked 'NP'.)

I've got a strong urge to fly...but I got nowhere to fly to

According to an article in the local rag, the models were purchased second-hand from "a closed-down attraction in Berkshire". Happily, this means they are of a distinctly retro bent and feature a number of sculpts that we've seen before on LITC, along with a few welcome surprises. The above Pteranodon (or 'Pterosaurus', as the farm would have it) is a quite stunning example of fibreglass grotesquerie, even if Living Dinosaurs' model sadly means that it isn't the strangest pterosaur model I've ever seen. Still, its super stretch-o-neck and screaming gob are quite something to behold. I do like that houses are visible in this shot - it gives the whole thing a rather Rodan feel.

The Pteranoderp is new to me, but this rather unfortunate fellow seems to follow me wherever I go - it's a mid-century-style Scolosaurus, complete with stumpy, spike-tipped tail, squishy fatness and gormless expression. The psychedelic mushrooms in the above shot aren't ever explained, and would appear to be a remnant from a previous attraction - nevertheless, they add a fantastically surreal touch to proceedings, evoking yet more memories of Blackgang Chine.

Here we see Niroot posing as moodily as he can against a backdrop featuring alpacas, a pretty hideous dinosaur model, and a sign with a photograph of a toy on it. 'Pterosaurus' aside, most of the facts presented on the (plentiful) signs are factually correct, even if they crib illustrations from some odd places. The Triceratops is another model that's popped up hither and thither, although nowhere near as often as my old friend (and obvious head-swap)...

...the forehead-horned gigantor Styracosaurus-thing!

Really, it's quite astonishing how many of these are out there. This one's seen better days, although I understand it took a bit of a battering in the winter storms we had. Here's hoping they'll have the old timer looking as bad as new very soon.

The final second-hand model in the set is this boring old hairy heffalump. It's livened up by still more psychedelic mushrooms and a terrifying tusk deformity. (OK, so it's probably just a painting error. I can't help but imagine them painting one side incorrectly, thinking 'Oh shit!', and then painting the other side to match. 'Hey, nobody will notice...')

NP

To pad out their collection, it seems that Godstone Farm purchased a set of smaller, newer models. The above Stegosaurus has had his feet buried in the mud by his grandchildren while he was asleep, and is now struggling to move - hence the furious expression.

NP

Nearby sits a curious frog on a set of painted lilypads. What's it doing there? I have no idea, but again, the eccentricity tickles me. Although if it's eccentricity you're after...

...you can't top a JP-esque 'raptor' model with only two fingers, peering out from within an admittedly quite impressive bower. This peculiar creation is labelled 'Tyrannosaurus' (no doubt 'cos of the missing fingers), and is also to be found...

...nestling in a seriously oversized egg (and among some speakers). Got to love those demented, slit pupil eyes. Close by, the mounted head of an 'adult' provides an amusing photo opportunity (as modelled below). Why, with the tooth row extending all the way under the orbit, one might be inclined to think that this theropod is of a basal, Early Jurassic lineage, perhaps related to the Dilophosauridae in some way. Or it might just be pop-culture tosh. Whatever.

NP

If one is to tire of the fibreglass lunacy, there are plenty of Real Dinosaurs to be had on the farm. My favourites are the rheas, even if they spend far too much time grazing, and nowhere near enough time showing off their crazy ratite flexi-necks. I love me some rhea neck.

Helmeted guinea fowl and crazy mop-headed chicken breeds, together at last!

NP

There are a particularly large number of chickens (makes sense, I suppose), with a wide variety of breeds on show. The farm's fondness for kippen might explain the following sign:

Although on the other hand, they might have just been looking for an excuse to use that image. Good grief. This will lead to the destruction of a great many bureaus, I feel.

So, yes, the dinosaurs are goofy. But is the attraction overall any good? Of course it is - there's a reason that the car park fills to the brim every weekend. With a great many opportunities to get close to farm animals, this is a fantastic place to give children an education in both natural history and the origins of their Happy Meal. Even for adults, there's the chance to get acquainted with some more unusual domestic animal breeds, including some lovely ducks, geese, and - of course - BLOODY CHICKENS. Naturally, it does depend on whether you give two shakes of a cornified fleshy appendage about domesticated animals - but why wouldn't you? They're fascinating too.

And on that note, I'll leave you with this picture of Niroot that I couldn't squeeze in anywhere else. With apologies for the nuclear glare.

Vintage Dinosaur Art: Prehistoric Monsters did the Strangest Things

While it would probably be more honest to replace 'did' with 'were' in the title of Prehistoric Monsters did the Strangest Things, it certainly makes the book an intriguing prospect. Exactly what were these antedeluvian beasties up to when not ineffectively disguising themselves with pondweed? Well, read on! Published in 1974 in the States, I'm borrowing this book from reader Patrick Bate. Hats (formed of aquatic vegetation) off to him.

As exemplified on the cover, the art style is somewhat cartoonish and stylised, with lovely bold washes and expressive animal faces. While maintaining an at least semi-serious approach to restoring extinct beasties, there is a certain irreverence in Michael Frith's style that is matched in the Hornblows' text. It's the sort of kid-friendly approach that doesn't shy away from describing creatures, very bluntly, as being dumber than a big heap of Fox News.

Scientifically, the book is certainly of a retro bent, as demonstrated no better than by its submersible sauropods. Frith's 'brontosaur' is a rather sad-looking, lumpen thing - like a sack of potatoes with a sullen turtle face poking out. Poor Bronto also suffers the indignity of being described as, yes, "terribly dumb". Still, I do like the inclusion of a lead on to the next page, featuring...

...Brachiosaurus, living in the awfully convenient Just So Lake (cue music). Of course, everything's better down where it's wetter; for here, the mush-brained titan could dine on water plants far away from the slavering jaws of tottering, tripodal theropods. Frith's illustration has definite shades of Burian, although Burian's water was notably less pink.

While slightly-less-than-contemporary science unfortunately reduces sauropods to uninteresting dullards, Frith has more fun with creatures that are permitted to be a little more active. His Stegosaurus looks fantastically cross, and seems poised to lash out at the nearby theropod, itself posed as if it is hitching up the edges of its skirts. The big girl's blouse. I love the declaration that Stegosaurus "liked cactus best of all" - there might not be an awful lot of evidence behind it, but such remarks add colour to a kids' book like this. Or at least, they make me smile. That's good enough, right? You'll permit me just this one, won't you? Wah!

Arranged in chronological order, the book moves on from the Jurassic to the Cretaceous, and so to hilariously goofy-looking retro-hadrosaurs. When I posted the above image on Facebook, a number of commenters remarked that it looked like a socket puppet - as indeed it does. It also has the mournful bovine eyes and frowny face to match its rather sorry state. In keeping with the submarine sauropods, hadrosaurs are here depicted as weird, saggy-skinned, web-fingered cowards with improbably shaped aqualungs attached to their (sock puppet) heads. They did the strangest things...like diving underwater when menaced by frog-headed tyrannosaurs (as below).

The pachycephalosaur isn't mentioned in the text, so it's not explicitly referred to as a hadrosaur, although this is somewhat implied. It's notable for looking rather nonplussed as the peanut-headed ones go for a splash.

Other retro dino book staples include Styracosaurus as a slightly less predictable stand-in for Triceratops. Referred to as the 'Frilly Monster', our pudgy hero 'clumps along' looking suitably grumpy as the local theropods timidly wave hello. I always enjoy the doughy, dragging tails these animals are given in books like these - '70s ceratopsians were often a world away from the glamorous, lame-joke-cracking movie stars of today.

As Triceratops' low-rent substitute, it's down to poor Styracosaurus to take on Rexy Frogmouth. It seems unfair that, of all the anachronistic animals it could fight, Styracosaurus was so often pitched against an animal that could defeat it by sitting on it. I think One Million Years BC was onto something in picking Ceratosaurus instead. But I digress. Rexy's a bit of a mess anatomically, with a weirdly pear-shaped body and puny legs, although his shark-black eyes (with red...pupils? Highlights?) are marvellous. More dark-eyed tyrannosaurs, please (see also: this model).

Of course, it's not all dinosaurs in this book - they just happen to be the illustrations that we're most interested in. The book runs the gamut from the origins of life to the modern day in its wonderfully playful style, featuring along the way a highly sinister Dimetrodon (above). To stare into its eyes is to seek only a profound emptiness that will penetrate your psyche and lead you to question the ultimate morality and purpose of your every act. Especially if you're a little pink-and-purple salamander-thingy.

Moving much further down the synapsid line, and Smilodon is also given a strikingly distressing treatment, no matter how Hanna-Barbera it might look. I'm especially fond of its evil grin. The text describes how Smilodon "stabbed and stabbed" its prey, before opening its mouth incredibly wide to wolf down great hunks of meat. It concludes:

"All the Smiladons [sic] died out thousands of years ago. That's a good thing. A Smiladon was cruel even when he was a kitten."

 Great stuff.

And finally...the book pays a well-deserved tribute to Mary Anning, culminating in this illustration of an ichthyosaur mount apparently modelled on a bounding dog. Still, the text here is quite lovely; a welcome reminder that modern palaeontology has been built through the dogged hard work of hundreds of individuals, and it's worth taking a moment to pay our respects. Here's to you, Mary Anning! And here's to Frith and the Hornblows for such a charming book. They don't write 'em like this anymore, etc...

Robosaurs in Rotterdam

Rotterdam seems to be a city in which every puffed-up, ever-so-avant garde architect of the last fifty years has been given free rein to erect whatever glass, steel, and/or jutting concrete monstrosity that they fancy. (As John Conway would say, 'take that, Rotterdam!') It seems only fitting, then, that the city should play host to the Living Dinosaurs expo - an exhibition of diverse, often impressively large, but never less than butt-ugly robot dinosaurs. Fans of prehistory-related kitsch will have a field day; palaeontologists may wish to avert their eyes.

Ironically, the building hosting Living Dinosaurs - the old Post Rotterdam - is actually rather lovely, being one of the relatively few buildings in the city centre to survive the Second World War. If only the robo-dinos were up to the job, this would be a suitably stately building for a gathering of prehistory's most majestic creatures. Alas, the models themselves are definitely of the 'rubbery and retro', sub-Dinamation-grade variety, and certainly not up to the standards of the finest that Japanese companies have to offer.

The route around the exhibition progresses, more-or-less, from the Late Triassic to the Late Cretaceous, opening with this rather crude - not to mention gigantic - Herrerasaurus. It's perhaps worth establishing from the off that absolutely none of the theropods have their forelimbs orientated correctly. In fact, all of the models have forelimbs that are incorect in one way or another, be it impossi-pronation, excessive claws on the digits, or even, sometimes, excessive digits.

There's also a bit of rather obvious economising going on, with some very different dinosaurs being treated as head-swaps of one another. (Hey, theropods - they were all about the same, right? Some just had more fingers or were a bit larger than the others. No biggie.) The above genero-theropod - identified as Yangchuanosaurus, for whatever reason - not only bears an uncanny resemblance to the Herrerasaurus, but appears to have exactly the same body as...

...this Monolophosaurus, right down to the paint job. Something similar is going on with the spinosaurs, which, save the sail, look uncannily like one another (despite their significantly different skulls in reality). They also share a number of inaccuracies with the Jurassic Park Spinozilla, including the paired lacrymal horns and overly-chunky jaws. In fact, they rather remind me of some of Pixelshack's creations, notably those created for the Brusatte/Benton coffee table crusher simply entitled Dinosaurs, which has a JP-esque spinosaur on the cover. If you ever wanted to see those dreadful CG creations writ large and robotic, here's your chance. Certainly, there's a similar degree of scientific fidelity going on here.

Admittedly, some of the models do impress through their sheer size alone. The centrepiece of the exhibition is a mightily big Mamenchisaurus, which is also one of the better models, even if that's not saying too much. Even when the anatomical blunders are as unavoidably obvious as a mariachi band to the face, it's always wonderful to be given an inkling of what it would have been like to stand next to a giant sauropod dinosaur...although they do it better in Amersfoort.

The full-size T. rex makes an impression too, even if it's less Sexy Rexy, more sad refugee from the early '90s. The head suffers from a serious case of the shrink-wraps, while the uniform teeth and peculiar crest configuration leave one wondering if they ever actually, you know, looked at a T. rex skull when designing this. My, wasn't Jurassic Park a long time ago...

Retro Rexy is accompanied by his offspring, Rexooki, who is essentially a snub-nosed, big-footed version of his dad (thus conclusively ignoring everything that is known about juvenile tyrannosaurs). There's something especially sad about the bunny-handed flailing of this little fella.

At least Tyrannosaurus remains recognisable as the unceasingly popular movie star we know and love. Some other beasts are not so fortunate. Without embiggening the below image to get a good look at that sign in the background, what would you guess the below animal to be? Well, you're wrong - it's Iguanodon. No, really.

Thankfully, Triceratops fares rather better, although it's not without is fair share of problems (very wrongly proportioned head and tail, woefully inaccurate feet, etc.). Again, its large size helps mask its flaws, as it helps excite the imagination as to what standing next to a real Triceratops would have been like. There would probably be fewer small Dutch schoolchildren, mostly as they'd be fleeing for their lives, clutching their chocolate spinkle sandwiches in their grubby little mits.

Of course, it's very easy to criticise - particularly when one encounters models as ghastly as these, miniature replicas of which wouldn't pass muster over at the Dinosaur Toy Blog. Surely there must be some positives to be had here? Indeed, there are, for the organisers saw fit to include an 'Evolution Room' that details the evolutionary history of the dinosaurs, culminating in present-day birds. Yes, in spite of what you might have inferred from its title, this is an exhibition that has no hesitation in declaring that Birds Are Dinosaurs! Kudos indeed to those involved in this aspect of the show, who are named over at the Living Dinosaurs 'about us' page. (We'll politely ignore the fact that the hall-of-hideous-robosaurs section of the expo also claims scientific authority, and in two languages no less, on a sign in the entrance hall.)

In addition, and in what must surely be quite a progressive move for a robo-dino show of this calibre, Living Dinosaurs includes animatronic feathered dinosaurs! Unfortunately, they're probably the worst of the lot. Say hello to dumpy Batman Microraptor.

Good grief. One glorious day, everyone who attempts to draw, paint or sculpt a feathered non-avian dinosaur, or indeed basal avian dinosaur, will remember that birds' hands support their wings...or that birds have hands at all. And the world will be as one. Until then, we'll just have to suffer things like this.

(By the way, the branch moves up and down, too. Quite why is a mystery, but it's agreeably hilarious.)

There are pterosaurs, too. Can they be any worse? Why yes, they can.

This is the sort of sight the likes of which is liable to make pterosaur researches break down into gibbering, broken shells of human beings, before dousing their eyes with concentrated bleach and welcoming the searing pain and onset of blindness as a distraction from ever having witnessed such an abomination of utterly failed palaeo-reconstruction. And it has five fingers, which is really stupid. Thankfully, we can always rely on Mark Witton to pop up and show us how things should be done.

And here he is, in the commendably educational Evolution Room. Thanks to you, Dr Witton, for a break from the eyesores. I hope they paid you handsomely.

Should you want to go and check out Living Dinosaurs - in spite of reading or, if you're anything like me, because you've read this article - then head to the Post Rotterdam in Rotterdam city centre, sometime between now and June 15. More info (in English and Nederlands) over at livingdinosaurs.nl.