I’ve found a bit of time to get back to the planned Berlin posts and thought I’d kick off with these. Anyone with an interest in reconstructions of dinosaurs will know the name of Charles R. Knight and his work in books and murals. These however are rather obviously statues, but ones that are apparently identical in all but the number of dimensions to his most famous pieces. I’ve seen things like these before in storage in Munich as was told these were produced alongside his murals, though whether by him or not I don’t know. Still, they are really rather nice and quite literally add another dimension to how these are normally seen.
If you know a bit more about this series (I’ve seen a Stegosaurus too, but unpainted) please let me know. I’m intrigued as to what they are. Did Knight create them as models to work from? Were they sculpted by him or another artist? My suspicion is that they were produced after the murals and then cast and sold onto museums, but I really don’t know.
At first just reading the title, I thought you were going to write about this: http://www.colourbox.com/preview/3533298-889599-knight-statue-from-barcelona-passieg-luis-companyos.jpg or the like :) Nice statues though. Are they currently on display?
Far as I know, Knight modeled the statues himself. He was an immensely skilled and versatile artist.
Knight was a very talented sculptor and produced a number of models of extinct and extant animals. Probably his most famous is a set of sculptures depiciting the evolution of elephants. He did sometimes produce models that he used to paint from.
Was it maybe this Stegosaurus? http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_loi0h0QkOY1qfm0klo1_1280.jpg
The version I saw was rather smaller, so not that one (or even a cast of it).
I’d wager they’re maquettes, 3 dimensional sketches, used to figure out the lighting in his paintings.
Yep!
It’s my understanding that he often sculpted the subjects of his paintings before he painted them. He had a sigificant visual handicap due to a childhood injury, and the sculptures helped him paint. Or so I’ve read.
Plenty of artists use maquettes to help them paint (James Gurney does for a start as he’s detailed in his interview on here), but it’s news to me that Knight had any eye problems, most interesting.