Taxidermy as Quotation
Making Nature Represent Itself in Early-Twentieth-Century Spanish Natural History Displays
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3856042 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Santos Casado (0000-0001-6073-3909, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 28 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 359-392 |
| Publication date | 2020-01-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Configurations (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1063-1801 • E-ISSN: 1080-6520 |
| Publisher | Project MUSE (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1353/con.2020.0016 |
| OpenAlex | W3042644606 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
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
Aesthetics · Archaeology · Art · Art history · Biology · Context (archaeology · Natural (archaeology · Natural history · Visual arts · Historical and Literary Studies · Historical Art and Culture Studies · History · Visual Culture and Art Theory · Ecology
| Citations per year | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2025 - 2025 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |