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Recreating an Age of Reptiles
The 'Age of Reptiles', formally known as the Mesozoic Era, gave rise to some of the most spectacular animals in Earth's history: dinosaurs, flying pterosaurs and marine reptiles, as well as many spectacular but less familiar species, such as the crane-necked Tanystropheus, hindlimb-glider Sharovipteryx, and our own diverse mammalian ancestors. Recreating an Age of Reptiles explores the Mesozoic Era through paintings of familiar extinct species as well as lesser seen subjects: burrowing dinosaurs, giant vampire squids and enormous, predatory flying reptiles. Details of the artistic process, scientific grounding and collaborations between researchers explain how each image was created, and discussions of the methods and goals of 'palaeoartistry' - the recreation of extinct animals and landscapes in art - explores the flexible boundaries between science and art when restoring ancient worlds.
- GenresScienceNonfiction
110 pages, Paperback
Published June 27, 2016
20 people want to read
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
August 2, 2016
I read Witton's Pterosaurs and absolutely loved it, and I wanted to love this book, too, but I couldn't. Don't get me wrong--the Witton-y stuff is great. In Pterosaurs, he wrote about pterosaur science, accompanied by his amazing illustrations. Here, you get the same kind of illustrations, plus an even greater range of subjects, but the text is Witton's ideas about representing extinct organisms in the flesh, and he discusses what he is trying to accomplish with several of his paintings. A different topic, but still fascinating.
Where the book falls down is it's actual physical quality. The layout seems a little sloppy--large expanses of white on several pages, weird widow lines here and there. The book has one of those bindings that won't lay flat, and several of the illustrations span two pages, so they end up with a weird discontinuity down the middle. And the worst part is that the reproduction of the paintings, the main reason you'd buy this book, aren't great. I've proven to my photography friends that I'm not much of a judge of the quality of an image, but these illustrations seemed fuzzy, desaturated, and dark, especially compared to the same pictures when they're posted on Witton's blog. On top of that, they had that weird ink-y texture that home printers give to printed color pictures.
In all, a really great book, but marred by the quality of its production.
Where the book falls down is it's actual physical quality. The layout seems a little sloppy--large expanses of white on several pages, weird widow lines here and there. The book has one of those bindings that won't lay flat, and several of the illustrations span two pages, so they end up with a weird discontinuity down the middle. And the worst part is that the reproduction of the paintings, the main reason you'd buy this book, aren't great. I've proven to my photography friends that I'm not much of a judge of the quality of an image, but these illustrations seemed fuzzy, desaturated, and dark, especially compared to the same pictures when they're posted on Witton's blog. On top of that, they had that weird ink-y texture that home printers give to printed color pictures.
In all, a really great book, but marred by the quality of its production.
Displaying 1 of 1 review