Paleoart

For more than a century, numerous artists working with a variety of media have used their visual and technical skills and their informed imaginations to help their audience to visualize the prehistoric past. They have used the information that they have gathered - from fossils and from experts in the field - to construct a reasonably accurate representation of a world that existed many millennia ago, long before human beings roamed the earth. Over the decades since paleoart came into existence, these artists have evolved alongside their scientific counterparts, developing new imagery that corresponds to the most recent research.

Below are images developed by paleoartists spanning the 20th century which can be found in exhibits at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.

Charles R. Knight (1874-1953), Hoplophoneus (1897)

Knight used gouache, an opaque water-based paint that is not transparent like watercolor, to create the image behind the skeleton of the Hoplophoneus primaevus, a catlike carnivore.

Konstantin Astori (1889-1975), Pterosaurs Through the Ages (detail) (1943)

Astori used oil paints to create an image of pterosaurs.

Jay H. Matternes (1933-), Notharctus (1990)

Matternes created these images of a lemur-like primate using pencil, charcoal, and ink.

D. W. Miller, Eusthenopteron Lunging at a Ray-finned Fish (detail) (1995)

Miller used pastel to create an image of eusthenopteron.

How did these artists choose to depict these creatures? Are the creatures still or active? Are these creatures interacting with their environments in some way?

What do paleoartists need to consider when creating an image of a long extinct animal? What might a paleoartist think about when creating an environment in which that animal is shown to have existed?