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

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.

New taxa and phyletic evolution of the Aeronian (Llandovery, Silurian) Petalocrinidae (Echinodermata, Crinoidea) in Guizhou, South China Block

Systematic paleontology of three new species of Petalocrinidae (Crinoidea) are documented from the carbonate-dominated units of the Shihniulan and equivalent Leijiatun formations (Llandovery, Silurian) of the Baisha, Fengxiang, and Shuibatang sections in Guizhou (China). New taxa are from the Upper Yangtze Epicontinental Sea of the South China Block. The new taxa include Petalocrinus stenopetalus new species, Spirocrinus circularis new species, and S. dextrosus new species. They have a narrow spatial and temporal (Aeronian) distribution. Evolutionary patterns of the four genera of Petalocrinidae are outlined based on the specialized characters of the fused arm plates. Phylogenetic analysis was used to assess morphological relationships within the Petalocrinidae. Petalocrinus inferior represents the plesiomorphic condition for the group and nests as a sister group of P. stenopetalus n. sp. and the Spirocrinus species used in this analysis and the clade exclusively comprised of Sinopetalocrinus. The phylogenetic analysis suggests that Petalocrinus, as currently defined, might be a paraphyletic genus.