July 22, 2011
| 
8
Scientific illustration is an artistic enterprise built with standard models, a history of discarded models, and conservative visual language. Conservative visual language is necessary: faced with complex systems, like say, the respiration system of a healthy human, the scientific illustrator clears away the visual noise of too much blood, muscle skin and even organs to highlight the necessary parts of the body a respirologist or surgeon needs to be concerned with. And there are standard ways to do that, such as fading out the body systems irrelevant to the lungs, and highlighting the important organs using stronger richer colours. This is a complicated process of simplifying the visuals so that anyone can look at it and in a moment, know what’s important. Standard visual language is essential across the discipline.
Early naturalists did the same: taking sketchbooks out into the field, and recording what they saw with sketches, labels and notes to go along with their specimens. you wouldn’t just write a description of an interesting plant’s leaf: a sketch is immediately more descriptive.
So what happens when the visual vocabulary of nature and science illustration is co-opted by pseudo-scientific industries?
That’s when you get the scientific illustration of magic beans.
A Naturalist's Study of Magic Beans by G. Mellow
Using the visual vocabulary of early scientific naturalists is often found in fun, fictional fantasy images, as I’ve done here, or for example James Gurney’s Dinotopia or Arthur Spiderwick’s Field Guide to the Fantastical World Around You illustrated by Tony diTerlizzi. It lends a romantic-historic, every-person feel to the illustrations of unreal things.
Most often, we see scientific illustrations that are later proved erroneous, the obvious ones being the lack of feathers on some early theropod dinosaur illustrations, or decades-old diagrams of the solar system clearly lacking the correct number of moons and sub-planetary bodies. In a recent very clever way of exposing the ubiquity of conventional scientific visual language, paleo-illustrator Scott Hartman of the Skeletal Drawing blog did an “allosaurus handstand”: a scientifically accurate rendering of the bone structure of an allosaurus, but posed in a handstand instead of a typical stationary or stepping forward pose.
Clearly fictional illustrations borrowing scientific conventions are not a problem. But what happens when a scientific illustrator or studio takes on pseudo-scientific claims, and illustrates those in a convincing manner? For example; XVIVO Scientific Animation Studios’ healing visualization for New Ager Deepak Chopra’s cancervisualization.com; or Hartman’s “allosaurus handstand”. Whether or not the visualization is accurate – and they appear to be, in the often orderly way scientific illustrations trade chaos for clarity – these types of examples raise questions.
In some ways, the illustrators on scientific papers or in books are the silent partner: credit on the colophon or in teeny text next to the image. It’s a particular world with it’s own superstars largely unknown outside their own industry (though here on Symbiartic, we’d like to make many of them household names). The illustration world is in turmoil right now, since so much of it is tied to the publishing industry. Scientific funding is low, due to a recession and social factors and quality-illustration is not often in the budget. It makes sense that scientific illustrators have to diversify their portfolios to put bread on the table. Exploring the boundaries of professional integrity are going to be interesting for the next several years.
About the Author: Glendon Mellow is a fine artist and illustrator inspired by evolutionary biology working in oil and digital media. You can see his portfolio at glendonmellow.com and at The Flying Trilobite blog. Follow him solo at @flyingtrilobite and with co-blogger Kalliopi Monoyios at @symbiartic. Follow on Twitter @symbiartic.
8 CommentsAdd a Comment
You must log in or register as a ScientificAmerican.com member to submit a comment.
Extinction Looms for Rare Frog Species, Now Down to 1 Individual
A Science Miniseries: The Big Story of Alcohol, Civilization and a Little Fungus
And you can tell everybody, this is your mouse's song
Surprising Truths about How We Think and Act
Chestnut Tree Circadian Clock Stops In Winter
Fracking gets the NMA Taiwan animation treatment
YES! Send me a free issue of Scientific American with no obligation to continue the subscription. If I like it, I will be billed for the one-year subscription.
Share
Email
Print
For some reason, this puts me in mind of the classically fanciful illustrations from the age of exploration, where artists would sketch newly discovered biota based on scant descriptions:
Armored Rhinoceros?
Link to this(Have to say off the get go, the hoops of logging in here for comments on here are not fun!)
I find the question of moral integrity within science in general interesting. To be involved in science these days one must join a work culture where it is as if a big brother figure watches over everything members do. One WILL be rewarded or punished accordingly to their actions, and thus what one can and can not be interested in are almost preperscribed.
I’m not sure who has it worst out of say the scientists of artists. On the employment end clearly the artist, as while the sciences are very under funded at moment there is still a need for scientists in the system. Sadly artists are optional. Yet artists probably have more flexibility in their ability to delve into more “risky” interests and topics than a scientist.
I do like the challenge however of the scientist who writes the science fiction novel compared to a scientific illustrator who does sci-fi pictures. I’m curious if there is a precedence for this having a negative impact on eithers career. I know of many successful scientists who write sci-fi novels, but I’m not sure of science illustrators who also do fantasy or sci-fi work.
On Yet I can think of one or two (former) palaeo-artists who have killed their career by illustrating pseudo-science concepts they independently had about prehistoric critters.
Which ties again into this big brother mentality within the sciences. Should one be punished for their own views, whether “right or wrong” within the disipline if they are expressed privately?
Statistically my favourite sports team might be the worst in the league, but yet I’m allowed to cheer for them. Why can this not be the case for an artist (or scientist) outside o f their professional work. When not on the clock why should their interests hurt their career? All be it so long as their actions don’t somehow hurt their field, collegues, research, and/or other people.
Sure we can demand a creationist not be allowed in a Geology department, that is a conflict of interest, and clearly would comprimise the integrity of this person’s work (even if it were scientifically sound… it would still be questioned by everyone). However a Geologist who is also curious in the UFO phenomenon is another thing altogether, yet in the 1960′s I know of such a poor geologist who lost his job because of such an interest.
Most other vocations are not held to anywhere near this level of scrutiny. Why have the sciences evolved into this self contained Orwellian mind field?
Link to thisThanks Alex! I considered using that Durer rhino to help make the point, but since I mentioned him in my last post, decided against it. But I should have, and thanks for bringing him up. A lot of the best and most controversial things about scientific illustration and how it intersects with fine art can be found in that 16th century Jesus-wannabe’s paintings. ;-)
Link to thisTraumador, is it Orwellian? Richard Dawkins once said, “…when two opposite points of view are expressed with equal intensity, the truth does not necessarily lie exactly halfway between them. It is possible for one side to be simply wrong.”
I think that can apply here. The practice of scientific inquiry has to hold itself to the high standard of describing reality and teasing out the irrelevant bits. You’re right that someone could have a breakthrough in one area and be utterly misguided in another – that happens all the time. But it can be a matter of degree. If my doctor doesn’t think acupuncture is an elaborate placebo, but instead, a valuable tool in medicine handed down through the centuries, I’d feel uneasy at what else they believe regarding maintaining my health.
The sci-fi part: I gave the example in a link of Terryl Whitlatch , who worked as a zoological illustrator before developing alien animal species for The Phantom Menace and other films. But I don’t know if she’s gone back to doing zoological illustration. It’s an interesting question you raise as to whether she could go back to it with the respect of clients in the sciences, or whether she’s firmly in the fantasy/Hollywood world now. Maybe we can find out.
Link to thisGlendon,
Have you seen the work of Nemo Ramjet? He illustrates mostly fictional, speculative evolution animals (see his Snaiad project), but I know he’s also done a few reconstruction of prehistoric animals, and he utilise the same general style for both.
The main skill of a visual artist is their ability to portray and convey an idea through a visual medium – whether the idea is one based on facts or fantasies. Within the context of a portfolio, I take it you are suppose to use it show off your illustration skill, and your ability to use the visual medium as a mean to convey ideas to a viewer. If I was in need of an illustrator, I would focus more upon what the portfolio tells me about the artist’s illustration skills, and not necessarily the ideas behind the images.
However, because a skilled artist is good at producing a convincing image regardless of whether it was based on facts or fantasy, they also have a responsibility to the viewer in making it transparent what kind of ideas are behind the image. In this context, I particular admire the extravagant Sauroposeidon proteles reconstruction by Brian Engh and the blog entry where he explained why he decided to reconstruct that sauropod the way that he did.
I can certainly think of a handful of scientist where “breakthrough in one field, but completely misguided in another” completely applies. I won’t name any names, but only because they usually make themselves known far and wide anyway. I forgot where I read this, but I remember someone saying one of the occupational hazards of being a science academic is the increasing probability of becoming a crank in your older years.
–Tommy
Link to thisTommy I agree with your points, and those are two fantastic examples. Scientific illustrations like Brian Engh’s are often in need of written context accompanying them, and he did an excellent job.
Context does matter. Personally, in the case of something like the XVIVO example I linked to above, I think it would be better off in a gallery on their site separate from their other medical work to make a different distinction than how it can be interpreted.
In case others are interested, you can find the examples Tommy suggests at:
Link to thisNemo Ramjet
Brian Engh’s Sauroposeidon proteles .
Marvelous stuff. I’ve always been most amused by that “field guide to fairies” which displays some of ‘em squashed between the pages. My own personal contribution (unpublished and not really needing it) shows the poop cave beneath the old dome as the South Pole…including tentacled monsters and nazi hell creatures. I suppose I should work it up into a real painting…and then a screenplay.
Link to thisThanks doug1! Yeah, Brian Froud’s Pressed Fairy book is pretty funny. If you work up a painting, let me know! (There’s a poop cave beneath the South Pole??)
Link to this