Good Stuff: Conservators developed advanced dyes and compounds to help restore fading dioramas to their original glory--and biological accuracy.
Image: AMNH/D. Finnin
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New Technology Saves Old Dioramas [Slide Show]
Before there was IMAX, before there was the Discovery Channel and even before there were color movies, there were dioramas. These lifelike, still-life scenes, when rendered accurately, can still overwhelm the viewer—and teach about habitat, anatomy and behavior.
The 43 dioramas in the Bernard Family Hall of North American Mammals at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York City are considered to be among the best in the world. They feature grand American bison grazing with pronghorn antelope on the Great Plains, majestic moose fighting at close range and wolves that seem ready to pounce out of their moonlit enclosure.
Dioramas might seem old-fashioned, but they allow visitors "to walk right up to the glass to check out individual features in a way you would never be able to do in a TV documentary," says Ross MacPhee, a mammalogy curator at the museum. "You can walk around them, see them from different angles—and that gives these presentations of natural history continued life."
Because of their careful construction in the 1930s and '40s with real plants and animals and ture-to-life settings, these scenes have remained captivating and convincing. But the decades of continuous display had led to faded fur, dusty leaves and yellowed snow. These slow shifts had made the exhibit both less engaging and accurate—a major failing in the eyes of animal experts like MacPhee. Many of the animals, such as the American bison, "went from all of these rich, beautiful browns and blacks to blond—nothing against blond; they just didn't look real," MacPhee notes.
In 2011 the AMNH began the massive task of assessing and restoring the historic dioramas—without permanently altering them in a way that would hinder future restorations. The project involved staff from many of the museum's departments, including curators, conservationists, exhibition preparators. But they also outsourced the some of the expertise. "We really needed a taxidermist to accomplish the recoloring," says Lisa Elkin, who directs conservation at the museum. But common taxidermy techniques had to be reinvented, and novel, reversible dyes created. Additionally, they had to devise new lighting sources and repurpose new materials so fragile scenes, such as snow-covered mountainsides, could retain their luster for decades to come.
Restoring the original coloring of these animals and their surroundings does not just provide a vivider visitor experience, it also preserves a moment in evolutionary time from the early 20th century. This enables researchers to track changes in coloring and habitat due to, for example, rapidly advancing climate change.
In October the Hall of North American Mammals reopened to the public after the yearlong renovation. Scientific American got a sneak preview of the exhibit beforehand. Here is how science helped the museum make this work possible.
View the slide show of the restored exhibits.
The real deal
In the 1930s the AMNH began work on perhaps the most ambitious real-life wildlife dioramas to date—and what would be some of the best ever accomplished.
The museum sent artists, curators and collectors out into the field across the continent—from the Grand Canyon to Mount Rainier to the Grand Tetons. For each scene teams chose an actual, existing place to re-create with plants, animals and scenery at the museum. Artists painted sketches, capturing the exact hills, streams, trees and rocks in specific spots. Collectors gathered plant samples to use and to re-create the snapshot back in New York; others killed the now-iconic animals that would be the centerpieces of these scenes.
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8 Comments
Add CommentThis article is supposedly about dioramas, remember, to preface my comments below.
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"This enables researchers to track changes in coloring and habitat due to, for example, rapidly advancing climate change." - Don't you just love how each and every supposedly scientific article, no matter what the purported and/or stated theme of it supposedly is these days, just never fails to get its dig in about "manmade global warming" aka "[global] "climate change?" And so now it's again evolved further (for the dramatic purposes of this article) into "rapidly advancing" "climate change!" I swear! An article could be about string theory or polar auroras, and I honestly wouldn't be in the least bit surprised to hear global warming (or any variant) be given a "shout out," even in an article such as those! Give it a rest for God's sake! This is the exact reason I finally CANCELLED my Scientific American magazine. If you want to discuss it (climate change) rationally, (you remember rationally, don't you?) and in a focused and pointed manner within a story of relevance,, then fine, but to have it repeatedly infiltrate, in such a sub-rosa fashion, each and every article published, as a superfluous, incongruous component to the stated purpose of the story,, well then sorry, I can't, don't and won't buy it, and I am no longer going to be buying from you either...
Upon reading "rapidly advancing climate change" I jumped to comment, only to discover that you did it for me already!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisScientific American must have an employee responsible for ensuring that some variation of the phrases "global warming" or "climate change" occur in every other article.
Well, Nagnostic and Lewtheprof, have you guys ever had a subscription with Objective reality and by the way, it is free!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFirst of all, I was a long time PAYING customer of the hard copy of Scientific American. I did finally )in disgust) switch to Science News, and honestly, it is a lot better (in this respect we are discussing),, not perfect but better. Finally though, just why would you think that opinion, editorializing and proselytizing should be [allowed to be] a part of the articles within any such a "hard news" or supposedly fact based science journal. If you knew anything at all about the history of this magazine, you'd know it is not (never been) the norm for it, historically speaking. This is clearly a path into sensationalism for them, at best,, into politically driven, advocacy/propaganda journalism at worst. They've sullied themselves with this, and my guess is that in some way (probably credibility) it'll ultimately hurt them. It's clear that they are unconcerned with that possibility right now, or are but another willing sacrificial lamb for the cause of pseudo-scientific advocacy for that which is politically expedient in our time.
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BTW, free or not, it's still propaganda and propagandizing. You and others like you, are enabling them and those like them by rationalizing and so by default, defending them. Is that really the right thing to do, whatever the topic? Just remember, "Opinion Journalism" is an oxymoron!
Hmmm...I did not read them to say 'manmade' global warming. If you do not believe in global warming, whether manmade or otherwise, it seems to me you are the one who is not being objective, it is a fact, not an opinion. The fact of the matter is, the changes caused by global warming are relevant to the discussion, and therefore appropriate to the article. You might be a denier of global warming, just as you might be a denier of earthlings having walked on the moon, or the earth being round...the fact you want to continue to believe something that has no scientific objectivity, does not make you objective, just irrational. There is a difference between healthy skepticism, which is in my view a virtue, and wearing blinders to any fact that does not support 'your opinion'. As they say, you are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own 'facts'.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's rather surprising to see an article in a scientific magazine refer to "pronghorn antelope" in a natural history article. I had thought that pronghorns were not antelopes, but a completely independent species. Was I wrong?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPronghorns are members of the family Antilocapridae, while "antelopes" are members of several different subfamilies of the family Bovidae. The term "antelope" is used to indicate a tropical or subtropical bovid, usually from Africa, that has a particular general size, temperament, shape, build, or head/horn shape. For example, the eland, an oxlike bovid, is considered an antelope based on habitat, head shape, temperament, and build. Such distinctions are often rather arbitrary.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you are going to give before and after shots, as with the Bison, please try to use comparable lighting and exposure. I would also be curious (a) what happened the Bison's "before" bird and (b) why was the "after" bison given a vigorous hair blow out (looks like 60s dos)? I would have expected the bison was originally given somewhat matted head hair as more likely in nature (rain, sweat, lack of combing, etc.).
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