Nineteenth-century paleontological art in the Natural History Museum Vienna, Austria: Between demystification and mythologization

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefanie Jovanovic-Kruspel ◽  
Mathias Harzhauser
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Natural Theology ◽  
Hard Core ◽  
Natural History Museum ◽  
Natural History Museums ◽  
Science Museums ◽  
Cultural Traditions ◽  
History Museum ◽  
Systematic Paleontology

ABSTRACT The nineteenth century was the dawn of scientific and systematic paleontology. The foundation of Natural History Museums—built as microcosmic “Books of Nature”—not only contributed to the establishment of this new discipline but also to its visual dissemination. This paper will take the metaphor of the “book” as a starting point for an examination of the paleontological exhibition at the Natural History Museum in Vienna. In keeping with “Natural Theology,” the earliest natural science museums in Britain were designed as expressions of the medieval idea of the “Holy Book of Nature.” Contrary to this, the Natural History Museum Vienna, opened in 1889, wanted to be a nonreligious museum of evolution. Nevertheless, the idea of the “book” was also influential for its design. According to the architects and the first director, it should be a modern “walk-in textbook” instructive for everyone. The most prominent exhibition hall in the museum is dedicated to paleontology. The hall’s decorative scheme forms a unique “Paleo-Gesamtkunstwerk” (Gesamtkunstwerk: total piece of art). The use of grotesque and mythological elements is a particularly striking feature of the hall’s decoration and raises the question of how this relates to the museum’s claim to be a hard-core science institution. As it was paleontology’s task to demystify the monsters and riddles of Earth history systematically, it seems odd that the decorative program connected explicitly to this world. This chapter sheds light on the cultural traditions that led to the creation of this ambiguous program that oscillates between science and imagination.

Juan Cristóbal Gundlach's contributions to the knowledge of Puerto Rican birds and his influence on the development of natural history in Puerto Rico

2014 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 251-269 ◽  
Author(s):  
James W. Wiley ◽  
Sylke Frahnert ◽  
Rafaela Aguilera Román ◽  
Pascal Eckhoff
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Puerto Rico ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Puerto Rican ◽  
Higher Education Institutions ◽  
Natural History Museum ◽  
Natural History Museums ◽  
History Museum ◽  
History Museums ◽  
German Naturalist

The German naturalist, Juan Cristóbal Gundlach (1810–1896), resided in Cuba for the last 57 years of his life, except for two expeditions to Puerto Rico in 1873 and 1875–1876, when he explored the southwestern, western, and northeastern regions. Gundlach made representative collections of the island's fauna, which formed the nucleus of the first natural history museum in Puerto Rico. He substantially increased the number of species known from the island, and was the first naturalist to make meticulous observations and produce detailed reports of the island's natural history. Gundlach greatly influenced other naturalists in the island, so that a period of concerted advancement in knowledge of natural history occurred in the 1870s. That development coincided with the establishment of the first higher education institutions in the island, including the first natural history museum. The natural history museums eventually closed, and only a few of their specimens were passed to other institutions, including foreign museums. None of Gundlach's and few of his contemporaries’ specimens have survived in Puerto Rico.

scholarly journals Riflessioni storiografiche italiane sulle civiltà del Sudest asiatico

2021 ◽  
pp. 75-86
Author(s):  
Alessandro Di Meo
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Natural History Museum ◽  
Political Information ◽  
Diplomatic Relations ◽  
History Museum ◽  
Ethnographic Studies ◽  
Scientific Institutions

This paper deals with the historiographic reflections on the civilizations of Southeast Asia, written by some Italian scholars who explored this area in the second half of the Nineteenth century. These texts were translations of summaries, unpublished notes intended for reworking, introduction to ethnographic studies. Their publication testifies to the trans-cultural circulation of historical and political information between Indochina and Italy, caused by political initiatives (the opening of diplomatic relations with Siam and Burma) and by expeditions financed by some scientific institutions, such as the Genoa Natural History Museum.

scholarly journals DESCRIBING THE EDUCATIONAL ROLE OF NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUMS: AN ANALYSIS TOOL FOR PRE-SERVICE AND IN-SERVICE TEACHERS

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Eirini Gkouskou ◽  
Dimitrios Koliopoulos
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Formal Education ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Natural History Museum ◽  
Analysis Tool ◽  
Natural History Museums ◽  
History Museum ◽  
History Museums ◽  
Educational Role

This study presents a tool for description and potential analysis of the educational role of the Science and Technology museum. This tool has been constructed from the point of view of formal education and it is proposed as a framework for the approach of the science/technology museum from the teachers and education administrators. More specifically, the tool is, at first, described in terms of structure, content and functionality and, afterwards, examples are provided for cases of international, national and local natural history museums (Natural History Museum in Paris, Goulandris Natural History Museum in Athens and University of Patras Zoology Museum accordingly). Finally, there is a discussion regarding the suitability of this tool to inform, instruct and train future and in-service teachers in aspects of museum education. <p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0720/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

scholarly journals Science and the Language of Natural History Museum Architecture: Problems of Interpretation

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 342-361
Author(s):  
John Robert Holmes
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Natural History Museum ◽  
Natural History Museums ◽  
History Museum ◽  
Museum Architecture ◽  
History Museums ◽  
Architectural Styles ◽  
Working Together ◽  
Architectural Language ◽  
Scientific Ideas

The historicist styles and decorative schemas of natural history museums built from the 1850s to the 1930s provide a unique opportunity to study the architectural expression of scientific ideas. At the same time, the significance of individual buildings varies widely. Drawing on examples from Britain, Ireland, Canada and continental Europe, this article explores three specific problems that arise in the interpretation of the architectural language of natural history museums. Firstly, the same motifs can convey very different meanings in different places. Secondly, the same governing idea can be communicated through different architectural styles which in turn inflect the idea itself. Finally, it is often hard to reconstruct the exact roles of the different actors in creating a museum building. The most complex museums, and the most challenging and rewarding to analyse, are those with the greatest number of scientists and artists working together to create them.

Basics of the external communication of State Natural History Museum NAS of Ukraine

2018 ◽  
pp. 3-8
Author(s):  
Arkhipova Kh. ◽  
Danylyuk K.
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Communication Strategies ◽  
Natural History Museum ◽  
Natural History Museums ◽  
History Museum ◽  
External Communication ◽  
History Museums ◽  
The World

The main tendencies of development of communication strategies of the leading natural history museums of the world are considered. Based on the Strategy for the Development of State Natural History Museum NAS of Ukraine, the main goals, tasks and channels of communication with the main segments of the audience of the museum are developed.

scholarly journals The Classic: The natural history museum

1970 ◽  
pp. 147
Author(s):  
Albert Eide Parr
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Natural Populations ◽  
Natural History Museum ◽  
Natural History Museums ◽  
History Museum ◽  
Main Research ◽  
Human Thought ◽  
History Museums ◽  
Dead Material

1939: «- if we do recognize that one of the main research missions of a natural history museum lies in the ecological types of investigation, we must obviously also admit the perfect appropriateness of handling live, as well as dead material, in the museum to the extent that the observations on the living individuals may tend to confirm or to explain the conclusions arrived at by the study of the preserved samples of natural populations.» 1950: «The side of nature which concerns society most of all is not undisturbed nature, but nature as the environment of man, and that is the field in which the educational efforts of the natural history museums could make their greatest contribution to human thought, welfare, and progress today.» 1980: «- it seems clear that museums, at least in the larger cities, may be more important as independently explorable additions to the environment itself than in the simple role of didactic interpreters of experiences gained from other sources.» 

NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUMS AS A SPACE OF SCIENCE EDUCATION IN THE KNOWLEDGE-BASED SOCIETY

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Potyrala ◽  
◽  
Karolina Czerwiec ◽  
Renata Stasko ◽  
◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Science Education ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Informal Education ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Natural History Museum ◽  
Natural History Museums ◽  
History Museum ◽  
Knowledge Based ◽  
History Museums ◽  
Starting Point

The museum activity is more and more often aimed at integration with local communities, organization of scientific debates and intercultural dialogue, expansion of social network and framework for communication and mediation of scientific issues. Museums generate learning potential and create a social culture. The aim of the research was to diagnose the viability of natural history museums as the spaces of open training and increasing social participation in education for balanced development. Furthermore, it examined the possibility to create a strong interaction between schools at all levels and institutions of informal education, exchange of experience in the field of educational projects and the development of cooperation principles to strengthen the university-school-natural history museum relations. In the research conducted in the years 2016-2017 participated 110 students of teaching specialization in various fields of studies. The results of the research are connected with students’ attitudes towards new role of museums as institutions popularizing knowledge and sharing knowledge. The outcomes enable the diagnosis in terms of preparing young people to pursue participatory activities for the local community and may be the starting point for the development of proposals of educational solutions increasing students’ awareness in the field of natural history museums’ educational potential. Keywords: knowledge-based society, natural history museum, science education.

scholarly journals ‘Visual Histories’ Science Visualization in Nineteenth-Century Natural History Museums

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 404-421
Author(s):  
Stefanie Jovanovic-Kruspel
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Visual Culture ◽  
Visual Memory ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Natural History Museums ◽  
History Museum ◽  
History Museums ◽  
The World ◽  
Shed Light

This article attempts to shed light on the complex interdependencies between science, art and popular visual culture in the context of nineteenth-century natural history museums. Natural history museums are still underestimated agents for (artistic) scientific visualizations. Built as ‘visual narrators’ they became a form of mass media that conveyed scientific knowledge to diverse audiences. This article is a first attempt to bring order into the broad field of science visualization and to describe its significance for the popularization of the natural sciences. The visual outreach of museums such as the Natural History Museum Vienna went far beyond their circle of visitors. By creating and presenting first rank artistic imaginaries, they inspired highly circulated teaching devices such as school wall charts, textbooks or models, thus influencing our collective visual memory. These images subconsciously shaped the way we perceive the world as it is and as it could have been. 

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document