September 10, 2013

The Drawings Behind Charles R. Knight’s Famous Paintings

If you’ve ever visited the great animal halls of New York’s American Museum of Natural History or Chicago’s Field Museum, you have seen the paintings of Charles R.

By Kalliopi Monoyios

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This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American

If you've ever visited the great animal halls of New York's American Museum of Natural History or Chicago's Field Museum, you have seen the paintings of Charles R. Knight. Despite being legally blind (due to a childhood injury), his depictions of animals in their natural environments were unrivaled at the time. To this day, they are an integral part of the magic of some of our greatest museums.

As any artist knows, behind every impressive painting is an equally impressive drawing, so it may come as no surprise that Knight's drawings are stunning in their own right. Along these lines, there's a lovely book by Dover Press called Animal Drawing: Anatomy and Action for Artists that deserves attention as an excellent resource and collection of Knight's animal studies. The drawings provide insight into how much knowledge Knight had about his subjects' anatomy. For today's SciArt Blitz, we offer you a sample:

Linkage:

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Animal Drawing: Anatomy and Action for Artists by Charles R. Knight, Dover Press

A small portfolio of Knight's paintings from the AMNH

The World of Charles R. Knight; Dinosaur Artist and Wildlife Painter maintained by Knight's granddaughter, among others

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Every day in the month of September, we are serving up a different science artist for your viewing pleasure. Can't get enough? Check out what was featured on this day last year: a NASA photo capturing our very own sun throwing a major temper tantrum. That blue dot in the bottom left corner? That's Earth (for scale).

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