Antediluvian Monsters: A Brief History of Early Paleoart
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- Опубликовано: 12 мар 2022
- Human cultures have stumbled upon the remains of long extinct animals since time immemorial. Interpreting these finds often meant providing mythological or folkloric backstories, with the fossils themselves often used for many purposes; from land deeds to medicinal protection. In ancient China, Greece and the Americas, bones of extinct animals were also viewed as belonging to gods, monsters and heroes. In late 18th Century Europe, western naturalists also came to terms with fossils and began to challenge their own biblical mythologies as a result. However, with specimens proving rather fragmentary, early palaeontologists had little to work with and thus filled in the gaps with inference and imagination.
In the process, paleoart adopted many tropes and concepts taken from the Bible, particularly the Old Testament, including a focus on apocalypse and eternal battles. Ichthyosaurs, Plesiosaurs, Pterosaurs and Dinosaurs received their names during the first half of the 19th Century and were depicted in an evolving sequence of images that shifted as new discoveries were made. Old certainties about the age of the earth and extinction were challenged in the process and the modern science of palaeontology was born.
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I gotta admit though, I have been missing the days when prehistoric creatures were depicted as nightmarish, eldritch abominations. Those were the paleoart that fascinated me as a kid.
Even though modern depictions are far more accurate anatomically, the feelings we'd experience meeting large prehistoric fauna would be more akin to the nightmarish antediluvian terror inflicted by 19th to early 20th century artworks. These animals would be terrifying to meet in the wild without the modern luxuries of the Holocene world protecting us. Being good mamas to their cutesy young doesn't make them any less terrifying, probably even more so.
Got to admit we probably are inherently drawn at wanting to imagine extinct life as such, lovecraftian monsters in an alien-like World.
Trying imaging them "philologically", with accuracy might eventually make them sort of "boring", too close to something we can be comfortable with.
Agreed. The feelings of fear one feels from seeing a bear too close to their house or an alligator peering from the water are still extremely scary, but completely different than the incomprehensible thoughts of strange, rubbery lizard beasts crawling around, foaming at the mouth and screaming violently in the prehistoric twilight. Modern depictions of dinosaurs are amazing but they don't possess the same unknown qualities that old paleo-art had which made you wonder if dragons could be real. Just like learning the truth about the tooth fairy or the Loch Ness Monster, it's usually a bit more disappointing than fascinating when having to face reality.
@@darkmastern2322 >it's usually a bit more disappointing than fascinating when having to face reality.
Yeah nah, your beautiful paragraph about incomprehensibly violent lizard beasts is exactly how early humans would've experienced dinosaurs, pteosaurs and extinct marine reptiles if those animals survived all the way into the Quaternery.
@@scionofpluto3420 I do agree on that. Our past selves experiencing a dinosaur attack would be similarly incomprehensible and horrifying and the dinosaurs surely would have been made into dragons or other beasts that would go down in human legend and lore. But that was then. What I'm saying is now days things are a bit different. Just as we are desensitized to horror and things we find creepy over the years, we're used to animals and even the scariest ones are at least logically able to be understood by most people. It's like how learning a lot about a subject makes it less frightening sometimes once you understand it. I'm much more scared of abstract or unknown things than I am of something I can understand.
Honestly while outdated most of this early paleoart they are still really good pieces of art,
like these things look like some of the unnamed beasts that roamed the lands of Middle Earth when Morgoth's shadow ruled.
Heck they even look like what would happen if lizards were to grow large
Exactly. We should still appreciate these pieces as works of art, some of which are incredibly atmospheric and moody.
They just looks like dogs. bloodthirsty aggressive beasts.
Demons in the flesh.
Nerd
Outdated art, wtf
So..."dinosaurs" then!
Personally, my favorite early Paleoart is that one drawing of bipedal stegosaurus that just straight up looks like Godzilla
What's weird about old paleoart is that despite its inaccuracies is how well it does for me what it did for it's contemporary audience, in evocatively creating an alien world that's fantastical and bizarre.
I wish there were more tributes to this era of paleoart. With this dynamic hybrid of extinct animals and mythology you don't have to worry about accuracy and you can just let your imagination run wild. I feel like more fictional worlds should just go crazy in depicting their dinosaurs, it encourages creativity.
Even knowing that they are flawed depictions, I really like the "Book of the Great Sea Dragons" style. It just strikes one as primeval. A fusion of an idea of the world before an apocalyptic flood and the few fossils we had begun to figure out. Really unique design.
Absolutely! These things may not be paleontology, but they are great archetypal nightmare fuel!
Totally agree. The artwork for this book really stuck with me ever since it first saw it when I was young.
As a Dungeon Master, I want to stick these "antedeluvian monsters" into my DnD campaigns somewhere. They're so singularly unique and evocative. Old World horrors from the hazy mists of deep time. Locked in eternal, vicious combat with anything they encounter. Would make for perfect monsters.
Looking back in order paleoart is something that is very interesting, paleoart seems to have its own separate history from paleontology as our interpretation of dinosaurs has changed, that is one of most fascinating things about paleontology to me.
Agreed. Of course, you can do that about a lot of things. For example, a history of how art about the surfaces of the moon and Mars have changed over time, or how depictions of the druids have changed. Actually, there has probably been too little change in the latter, with 19th-century LARPing continuing to be more popular than real history or archaeology.
11:01 "Prehistory appears as an apocalyptic war zone, with both biological and geological violence on display."
So basically he nailed it?
In the future, if you ever get the chance to do it, can you do a speculative evolution on what if the Great Dying never happened? Or a history of the Anteosauridae family from the Mid - Late Permian? I work at the Houston Museum of Natural Science and I always like to fascinate kids about the time before the dinosaurs.
Oooh I second this!!! That’d be so cool!!
Lucky! You have such a dope job!
Alternate history hub took a shot at this, he even implied that arboreal synapsids would fill the niches that apes and humans take up currently.
Can you get me the hookup at HMNS?
@@RHR199X ... Considering arboreal synapsids did, indeed fill those niches, that's hardly a stretch.
Excellent presentation and observations. As to the subject of the respects in which paleo-art *hasn't* changed leading up to and including the contemporary era, I think the emphasis on ancient animals in combat persists as a "crowd-pleasing" objective. One of the striking qualities of the series Walking With Dinosaurs, when it came out, was a greater emphasis on telling the natural history of the whole live-cycles of the ancient animals depicted in it (although, of course, the episodes still featured scenes of predation, but that is, after all, an authentic aspect of animal life).
Approaching the lives of ancient fauna in a more documentary style, as the Walking With... series did so successfully, has been established as a new benchmark for paleo-video media since. While blockbuster movies like the Jurassic World entries of late maintain an interest in dinosaurs among general audiences, those of us with a more serious and/or specialized interest in paleontology benefit from the secondary market of the documentary style productions that come out in the wake of the blockbusters.
Lets be fair, it isn't just dinosaurs. Depictions of modern animals in the media often has them 'in combat' as well. I suppose an image of a shark launching itself into the air with a seal in its mouth or a pack of wolves dragging down an elk is far more stimulating to the imagination.
I'm already noticong more serene art depicting dinosaurs. It does makes sense to me, considering they were just animals too and probably avoided conflict unless necessary, i.e. hunting, territory disputes
This was basically an art analysis and I’m here for it.
Thank you for an insightful view into paleo art! It was like having a pictorial tour guide through the last few hundred years of artistic interpretation based on dinosaurs bones of the time. Thank you Dr. !!!👏👏👏😁
I love these old 19th century representations of prehistoric life. They're so full of imagination and energy. I'd love to get hold of some originals for my small collection of 19th century natural history plates from debound books, but I suppose they're rare.
These illustrations are truly disturbing to me. Especially their eyes…
Great research! Thank you for sharing!
As an artist who's interested in both ancient history and paleontology I enjoyed this video very much. Thank you.
Great idea for a video. Some artists interpretations of more modern mammals are pretty cool too. There's a piece called Durer's Rhino from the 1500's that looks nuts.
I think the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs are my favorite piece of paleo art. I would love to own miniature reproductions to put in a garden of my own sometime.
That would be extremely cool
I always look forward to your videos. I'm never disappointed.
Informative visuals and narration.
Depict modern understandings of Mesozoic animals as antediluvian monsters.
Imagine how these anatomically correct "dragons" would look in such set pieces. Very beautiful
17:06 i hope we get a Primal episode based off of this nightmare. That would be so amazing
The thing about early paleoart that always struck me was the density of creatures featured, as a kid it filled me with a terrifying image of the past in which nearly every square meter of space was highly contested by a wide range of terrifying creatures
What i found funny is that the 18th century paleo artists where kinda right…. About the creatures of the permian: four legged reptiles that fall into the uncanny valley between mammal and reptile.
Proto-mammals were not actually reptiles. They radiated from fish just as reptiles did but were a distinct group.
those memoirs remind me of someone in school trying to explain that fossils were the bones of the creatures that lived outside of Eden and that Noah didn't pick for his Ark, as an 8 year old i remember thinking "yeah...sure..."
I honestly love old Paleo-Art, it has a particular character to it
I weep for the fossil species we don’t know of because people back in the day had no idea what they were looking at.
10:11 The way everything is either bitting or screaming in this illustrations is pure horror, reminds me a little of prehistoric Earth in Devilman.
It's quite interesting how hard it is to make sense of the remains of animals dead ages ago.
Also the idea of not believing animals can truly go extinct is fasinating, we take a lot of concepts for granted i guess.
I made a comment elsewhere yesterday I think that pterosaurs like Rhamphorhynchus look like wyverns and then I thought about it and the wyvern is a mythological creature of Wales, Cornwall etc where very well preserved fossils of pterosaurs have been found so I wondered.....
Hmmmm….. and I thought it looked like my Aunt Diane. Go figure
I still own some dino encyclopedias that depict animals with active volcanoes in the background
I'm glad I'm not the only one who noticed that was a trope in depictions of the Mesozoic for a LONG time xD
now i just wanna see a whole series on the various phases of paleoart
Wow, beautiful art work and fascinating history.
I have been doing abstract paleoart and this old style is quite inspiring.
I always thought that volcanoes were simply more active in dinosaur times, as the earth was less stable then. Great video.
When i was young tyrannosaurus was still depicted upright supporting itself by its tail like a kangaroo.
I do like the idea of calling Pterosaurs "griffins", though. If they were alive today, we would certainly not group them with snakes, lizards, and turtles, any more than we group birds as reptiles. (OK, they're descended from them. They're also descended from fish, but we don't call them fish, either.)
That sounds like something a highly derived fish would say...
@@fraidnaught9067 For many centuries -- probably many millennia -- people used "fish" to mean "anything animal that lives in the water". Thus, we have jellyfish, shellfish, crayfish, starfish, etc. Then someone decided that, no, a fish is (basically) a vertebrate that breathes through gills for its entire life cycle, so a whale is not a fish. This allowed them to look down on those who continued to use the people who still used the language as they always had. Eventually, this idea was accepted by the public. Now we turn around and say, "No, you ignorant fools. Cladistics tells us that whales are fish, we are apes as well as fish, etc." This is nothing but arrogant nonsense. At least in physics, we can talk about power without condemning people for talking about "the power of the purse", or work without condemning people who mean their jobs.
Scientists have no right to dictate the use of the language to the public. If the public want to call Pluto a planet, it is not wrong, it's just not the technical term to be used in an astronomy journal.
@@christosvoskresye ...what?
If griffins were real animals, they would clearly be related to the platypus.
The history of paleoart has come a long way!
This was intriguing and an excellent video. Thanks for making!
I'm rather bothered by the griffin-as-Protoceratops hypothesis, both for the reasons you stated and because it denies the very important factor of human imagination. Griffins have symbolic meaning as the fusion of two animals that are perceived as majestic, and I don't think human minds needed prompting from fossils to come up with that.
It's really incredible looking at how people 200 years ago tried to piece together a past so vast and unknown that their efforts were doomed to fail from the beginning, but they laid the groundwork for everything we know today.
They didn't have any alternative, they had such little information but still they did their best to make sense of the world.
Thank you to everyone who asked questions before me.
They did, and some of them addressed them right: they used the term "dragon" to classify them, and they had the narrative as well: The Bible. The fossils are found by far in sedimentary formations; those are not caused by meteor, but by water - and a lot of it. _The Noah's Flood_ is only plausible and observable explanation.
@@i7Qp4rQ Ernest, I'm not going to sit here and argue with a creationist. I don't think you're stupid or anything, but seriously think about how one giant flood would possibly leave numerous stratified layers with distinct types of fossils found in specific layers.
@@ashleylastname9091 Yes, it's easier to stay in one's safe zone. The video name says "antediluvian", which is in contrast to evolutionary secular pov in any case. So when participating in such, you may expect results as such.
"..think about how one giant flood.." That has been thought, for several thousand years for that matter. All that and more is within faq section on about any given relevant page. A flood that lasted longer than a year, with immediate aftermath of "ice-age", with simultaneous, great and short-term continental changes. Fossils dont appear around with ashes, as if meteor was to cause them.
From page ICR:
"Up to 400 feet thickness of strata have formed since 1980 at Mount St. Helens. These deposits accumulated from primary air blast, landslide, waves on the lake, pyroclastic flows, mudflows, air fall, and stream water. Perhaps the most surprising accumulations are the pyroclastic flow deposits amassed from ground-hugging, fluidized, turbulent slurries of fine volcanic debris, which moved at high velocities off the flank of the volcano as the eruption plume of debris over the volcano collapsed. These deposits include fine pumice ash laminae and beds from one millimeter thick to greater than one meter thick, each representing just a few seconds to several minutes of accumulation. A deposit accumulated in less than one day, on June 12, 1980, is 25 feet thick and contains many thin laminae and beds. Conventionally, sedimentary laminae and beds are assumed to represent longer seasonal variations, or annual changes, as the layers accumulated very slowly. Mount St. Helens teaches us that the stratified layers commonly characterizing geological formations can form very rapidly by flow processes. Such features have been formed quickly underwater in laboratory sedimentation tanks, and it should not surprise us to see that they have formed in a natural catastrophe. "
That video was incredible! I only wish u kept going! I don’t think there’s a second part, but u just have an introduction to the pre-modern era of paleoart, of which there is much more, and all the new interpretations and information between that pre-modern era, and the modern era(starting around the 1970s-80s, until now) has SO much to it, u could probably make a couple or few videos on JUST the modern era by itself! Please consider at least a probably condensed second video to cover from where this video left off, till current times, if not having to split it into more:) that would be fantastic! Well, either way, this video was terrific, thank u very much!
Ancient paleoart is so strange but fascinating at the same time, it is nice to see how our interpretations of these creatures have changed. From terrifying monsters to the animals they really were.
Although if I'm honest, I don't think they've stopped being terrifying, some birds really are disturbing.
There's a certain charm to old paleo art, even if it isn't scientifically accurate. I'd love if they make a comeback in some form.
This is the first of your videos that I have watched, and I really enjoyed it! I have seen toldinstone and histocrat cover this topic already, but you offered a good bit of information that I didn't get from their videos!
Man you got a good channel going 👍🏻
Dr. Polaris. Your channel will grow and do well. Keep the good content coming ! Thank you for your efforts.
I have to confess, I saved this video to watch like three days after you originally posted it, and I only just found this video again eleven months later. Whoops. I have however, rectified my mistake and have watched and greatly enjoyed your overview on this topic. It is fun looking back as our portrayal of how these animals lived has changed and grown with new techniques and study. I feel like there’s also room to discuss art by ancient humans portraying now extinct animals.
Excellent video, I learned a lot about a fascinating topic! As a child I was fascinated by the Crystal Palace exhibits shown in my dinosaur books, so this is right up my angle.
Subbed.
Hi there, thanks for another video. If you ever do cryptids again, how about you do The Mothman from America or Springhill Jack from England.
The idea of dinosaurs being literal demonic beasts fighting endlessly in a primordial battle royale reminds me of the manga 'Devilman'
Also, a lot of the darker artwork (in lighting, not tone) reminds me of how skull island is depicted in the original film. Low light, heavy fog, crocodile-like scales. As scientific artwork, it obviously doesn't hold up, but as general artwork it as fiction this is all excellent.
Enjoyed your video and so I gave it a Thumbs Up as a support
Quite insightful as always. Looking forward to the elephant video. Today (13 March) is National Thai Elephant Day.
There’s something so intriguing and almost mesmerizing about these monsterous designs. Like of course it’s not accurate but hell it gives me great inspiration for ideas and stories of a primitive and dangerous world. Would make a damn good D&D campaign.
This was a super interesting video!
This was a great video, thank you.
This channel is a great finding. Subscribed asap
I was searching for the picture in your thumbnail for years! I saw it over two decades ago when I was a child.
When you said "biological and geologic violence," I couldn't help but picture the scenes from Fantasia where the rock is violently shooting out of the ground during the Proto-Earth depiction. That horn noise still haunts my brain.
An excellent and thoughtful video.
Very well done sir. Very interesting.
I love this video! Thank you very much!
they are the sherlock holmes of modern times, we learned so much step by step, so much work, so many people, amazing story of seeking the truth, making mistakes is a part of. love it!
I think that early art work is both beautiful and bad ass
want interesting, I really liked the video and the references to books and paleoart.
Thanks for this video, i learned so much! Its amazing how ideology-charged things are, even in science fields.
The old dinosaur art is so awesome!
I love this video so much
I have been to the Dinosaur Footprints reservation in Holyoke Massachusetts, several times. It is a bout an hour drive from where I live. Real easy to get to on Route 5, off of I 91. Exit 23 in Northampton, head south on Route 5 about a mile or two south. It will be in the left. Blink and you’ll miss it. If you head into downtown Holyoke, you went too far
When I was a kid, I grew up in a world where the accepted depiction of dinosaurs were swamp-dwelling lumbering brutes. When I initially viewed the paleoart of Charles Knight, I thought, "Dinosaurs were not like that at all -- they didn't walk so upright, they could really move, and they didn't drag their tails." However, when I saw Knight's depiction of two therapod dinosaurs leaping at each other (one on its back) I had to rethink at least one example of Knight's artwork. Many thanks, Dr. Polaris.
I love this channel
fascinating review
1:55
Shark teeth fossils were particularly valued as ready-made arrowheads by natives.
I love old paleo art I think it’s important to see the history of how we once viewed the world over the course of time I always imagined a walking with dinosaurs style documentary where the premise is each episode is how we thought the prehistoric world looked like progressing until we reach how we perceive the world most likely looked like
I have a bit of a soft spot for some of that old, hilariously inaccurate paleoart.
People who didn't yet have a concept of millions of years old life making fantastical interpretations of fossils makes plenty of sense. If your living 500 years ago and know enough about animals that sharp curved teeth usually means something possibly dangerous, it must've been unnerving to find a bunch of pointy, curved teeth as long as your hand if you're walking down a hillside.
The funny thing is that even science fiction doesn't seem to understand deep time much better than H. G. Wells understood it. In his case it was understandable, but by now we should understand that major evolutionary changes should not be expected in a few thousand years.
@@christosvoskresye Depending on how you define "major evolutionary changes", and under normal circumstances.
@@stormisuedonym4599 I mean like in Babylon 5, which treated a thousand years or so as being some sort of cosmic timescale, being the time since the last, half-remembered war with the Shadows. Also in Babylon 5, it only took humans a few thousand years to evolve into "beings of pure energy", which -- whatever it means -- is something more like the evolution of the first cells than the transition from water to land. Stargate is not much better; the "Ancients" lived a few million years ago, but they did not come from earth, and for no particularly good reason we are evolving into EXACTLY the same species they were.
"Normal circumstances" would have to mean "not directed by sustained, artificial selection".
Or current paleo art will probably be faulted for being too musculo-skeletal and not factoring in enough variation in skin, hair, feathers, and other coverings. Almost no animal alive now looks much like it’s skeletal profile.
That starts to change in last few years.
That is some nice content here. ;)
Can you do a cryptid profile of the Beast of Bray Road please? No one has made this yet.
ruclips.net/video/nc6EU7zTIxc/видео.html
Beast of bray road
@@dr.floridaman4805 **Facepalm** , not the video that is biased for the existence of supernatural and other paranormal creatures (I don't believe in those things as they make little to no sense in terms of biologically, theology, etc), I meant the cryptid profile for what was the creature, the story of it, and does/did it exist (always answered no) like other cryptid profiles by Dr. Polaris and the cryptid profiles made by Trey the Explainer.
I for some reason just never came across the thought of dinosaur bones contributing to the folklores of time and now some of it makes more sense lol. 😄👏
Hey Dr Polaris
Nice video! I was wondering if you know of any similair books to Book of the Great Sea Dragons or any similar books of drawing of animals that verge on the fantastic or monstrous.
If you do I would be very interested and appreciative to know!
Me recordaste a un viejo VHS que solía ver de pequeño, tenía esas imágenes antiguas de dinosaurios. Fueron un gran impacto para mí, y marcaron mi fascinación con estos animales extintos
It took me a second to realize this had nothing to do with VTM and I think my recommendations doesn't know either
bruh
So refreshing to see someone not mocking the early blend of Biblical imagery with fossil findings but explain it within the context of the time period and in respectful and interesting manner. Great video.
great video! :)
I really like the idea of dinosaurs as bloodlust demon-like creatures
Except, they weren't. This art comes from a time when most of humanity had no respect or reverence for nature and saw as something inferior and impure and beneath humans somehow.
very interesting video.
Subscribed as soon as I heard the crash bandicoot ice theme
Dr. Polaris is a monocle wearing polar bear! Immediately subbed.
Thank you so much for defending our predecessors instead of taking the opportunity to snub your nose at those who pioneered the knowledge we built upon. Too many seem so eager to fellate their own ego at the expense of people who were doing the best they could with the information they had.
They looks scarier than modern Paleo art somehow.
Great video! What is the music? It's beautiful
I want a high-budget mockumentary about what the original interpretations would've been like as a real, scientific world
yes i was just thinking about what early americans were thinking of dino tracks they found. would be so cool stumbling on some tracks and then talking about it before the main hypothesis .
What music is playing in the background? It's nice
Can you please make an entire video about paleoart?
The art at 10:12 triggers my phobia of the sea and the dark
The idea of being stuck on either a small boat or on the rocky shoreline with only a feeble light from a distant moon, only to be surrounded by bloodthirsty, screeching, bellowing leviathans is the definition of nightmare fuel
Oh no, man
they'd probably have little reason to vocalise and be very, very quiet
@@SeanCrosser shit that makes it scarier
What if the only warning of their presence was a faint rumbling vibration 😱
@@ezrastardust3124 I very much doubt they were even all that vicious or bloodthirsty. I'm sick of prehistoric lifeforms being viewed as hateful, brutal monsters that existed only to kill.
Could you post a reading list of books, or art repositories, where we can look at these images? They may be completely wrong, but they are beautiful and great for sparking the imagination.
Would you consider covering the Ursoidea and Hemicyonidae soonish?
I really dig the griffin carving at 3:05 . Can anyone identify where that is from? I'd love to be able to find an image of it.
Kind of an odd question, but is that the hub music for Zandalar that you've got playing in the BG? From World of Warcraft? I think I recognize it but can't pin it down exactly.
Yes it is! A very atmospheric piece of music that goes well with prehistoric life.
@@dr.polaris6423 I agree! ^^ I'm a fan of the game so it was really cool to hear the song in your video. Keep up the good work!
very good
I love those paintings. It almost looks like a totally different world. Alien from ours.
I'd love to check out that Crystal DInosar Garden!
Definitely worth a visit, when I was a kid we used to go whenever we were in London but I've not been in years