Article ID: CBB921390736

Taxidermy as Quotation: Making Nature Represent Itself in Early-Twentieth-Century Spanish Natural History Displays (2020)

unapi

This essay aims to examine how naturalists have explored different ways of representing nature in their research and popularization practices. More specifically, it focuses—within the particular historical context of Spanish natural sciences in the first decades of the twentieth century—on the uses of natural specimens as physical components of representational assemblages of various kinds, such as entomological displays and taxidermy dioramas. The essay shows that, in order to be labeled as natural, these assemblages entailed complex processes of extraction and recontextualization, and their components were mixed and rearranged in highly artificial ways. I argue, therefore, that taxidermy dioramas and similar natural history displays could be understood as a form of visual and material quotation.

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Authors & Contributors
Casado de Otaola, Santos
Aragón, Santiago
Li-chuan Tai
Ronald Raminelli
Russell, Sharman Apt
Karen Karen Lloyd D'Onofrio
Concepts
Natural history
Museums
Naturalists
Taxidermy
Specimens
Entomology
Time Periods
20th century, early
19th century
20th century
18th century
Places
Spain
United States
China
Atlantic world
Lisbon (Portugal)
Madrid (Spain)
Institutions
Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland
Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales
Smithsonian Institution
Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales (Spain)
Junta para Ampliación de Estudios e Investigaciones Científicas (Spain)
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