ART TO ETERNITY
Mr. Hornaday's Handiwork
(excerpted and edited from the book, without endnotes)
What do we really see as we encounter the American Bison Group of William T. Hornaday? Six buffalo who stand for all buffalo -- surely. But do we not also find ourselves in the presence of real animals of considerable age and rarity? In fact, we do. Visible parts of each of the six specimens composing the Group -- their woolly hides, curving horns, rugged hooves -- are the physical remains of some of the last wild bison to wander the Great Plains of the American west. Behold, then, “survivors” of the vast and vanished herds which once spawned them! About the only visible part of the historic specimens which is not of natural origin is their glass eyes -- hand-blown, hand-painted masterpieces, skillfully crafted in a nineteenth century New York glassworks. It is these eyes, as much as anything, which convey to the viewer the vitality which still emanates from the specimens today.
Inside the specimens, however, it is a different matter entirely. Beneath their preserved skins, in total darkness, lies a world of artifice known only to a select few. It is to these inner mysteries, and to the mind of the artist himself, that we turn now. Leaving no doubt, William Hornaday emphasized what these specimens are not: simply empty hides stuffed full of straw or rags until they assume a puffy mass totally unlike the living animal. In fact, Hornaday spent years overcoming that result, before he even dreamed of creating the Bison Group. During his apprenticeship at Wards Natural Science Establishment, of Rochester, New York, in the late-1870s, Hornaday helped to pioneer a new departure in taxidermic realism, involving the use of the hollow, “clay-covered manikin.” By incorporating scientific methods with the eye of an artist, Hornaday used manikins to overturn the entrenched scientific doctrine of severe simplicity -- a static display method long in vogue with the museum establishment. And he succeeded: Rigid rows of Earth's amazing creatures suddenly gave way to inspiring visions of naturalistic realism, termed “habitat groups.” Here, the American Bison Group led the way. As Hornaday tells it, “The reception accorded the group of buffaloes settled all doubt…regarding the estimation in which such groups would be held by the public.” And it all started with simple manikins which few museum-goers ever saw, or even dreamed were 'in there.' Hornaday's manikin process begins with detailed and precise field measurements, taken fresh from life, and proceeds to construction of an armature of wood and iron made exactly true to those bodily dimensions. The specimen's musculature, then, is carefully filled out with excelsior and bundles of tow, firmly wrapped with jute, to resemble the original contours of the animal itself. Reproducing the physical details of the living specimen is something else again, and calls upon the anatomical knowledge and artistry of the taxidermist himself. With the specimen's gross anatomy complete, a moist, fine-grained clay is applied to the surface of the manikin, to a thickness of 1/8” to 1/4” entire. With the immediate application of the animal's still-moist skin to the manikin, the edges are then expertly sewed closed at all seams, from hoof to belly. It then becomes possible to model -- sculpt, as it were -- the fine-grained features of the animal's body and countenance, yielding an impressively true-to-life result. With the clay and skin dried in a few weeks' time, a high-quality papier mâché is used to fill in any cracks or gaps in the seams of the specimen, which are then artistically painted. With that, the inevitable flaws of the mortal creation virtually disappear. “There is supreme pleasure in crowning a well-made manikin with a handsome skin,” writes Hornaday. “It is then that you begin to be proud of your work; and finally you revel in it. You say to yourself, this is art!, and so it is...” Grouping the finished manikins to appear in a semblance of their natural habitat, is of course the final important step in Hornaday's complex methodology. “The specimens collected…should by all means be the finest procurable,” Hornaday begins. “The two largest and finest specimens…should constitute its central and commanding figures…each group should form a perfect picture…and the relationship of the different specimens to each other should…leave no room for the suggestion that [they] have been mounted independently, and simply placed together.” It is the visual integrity of the habitat group, then -- the precise placement and posing of individual specimens in relation to one another -- which Hornaday saw as central to its effectiveness as an 'object lesson' worthy of his museum. “By mounting the manikins one by one, and grouping them,” Hornaday explains, “we are able to secure the precise artistic effect that was intended in our design.” The American Bison Group was created expressly to illustrate this central principle: integrity of the specimens with one another, and with the natural world writ large. With manikins posed, finished, and grouped in accordance with the strict requirements of scientist and artist alike, the issue of their future then arises. Here, too, William Hornaday provided customary foresight, establishing their permanency as “the foundation upon which every specimen must be built in order to be first class.” Clearly, he intended that his specimens endure, and testimony to this effect appears throughout his published writing. In declaring the “unchallenged superiority” of his clay-covered manikin, he lists “the absolute permanency of the form produced” among the method's major attributes. With confident voice, Hornaday concludes, “A taxidermist who knows his business can mount a specimen to last ten years, or ten hundred, just as he chooses." As a naturalist, artist, and taxidermist, achieving relative immortality for his specimens -- and for the animals they represent -- was Hornaday's ultimate goal. “The museum of the future will be life itself,” he once proclaimed. To this end he pushed himself and his work relentlessly. Describing the preparation of his bison manikin for the Group's large bull, Hornaday writes, “I climbed upon it, and stood with my full weight...and to test the strength of the neck irons, I put a large anvil on top of the skull without making the slightest permanent impression...” After all, he adds, “It is no child's play to prepare a group of large mammals…and the work is supposed to last a century or longer.” Taking as our starting point the glorious polychrome images found in decorated caves throughout Europe, and elsewhere around the world, it would appear that the artistic drive to reproduce vanishing animal forms -- bison among them -- is a venerable human tradition of 30,000 years or more. |
Through evolving mediums of drawing, painting, sculpture and, of course, taxidermy, that tradition continues today. As one scholar of Hornaday's life and work observes, “[H]abitat groups still attract the greatest crowds, and their construction will probably never be discontinued. For there are those in the museum world who have not forgotten what Hornaday...realized long ago-- that the general impressions of the beauty, complexity and unity of nature which habitat groups offer are as important as the information conveyed from more factual exhibits.” Given Hornaday's keen eye to the artistry and permanence of his own groundbreaking work, in his own time, it should come as no surprise that such a man would beg his successors, even from the grave, to keep his precious specimens from harm. Instead, it now seems, it is most fortunate that he did.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Sources of eight images shown above:
1) American Bison Group in the U.S. National Museum, c. 1900-1910
(Smithsonian Institution Archives. Negative #14370, RU-95, Box43)
2) Partially-completed manikin for the great bull, American Bison Group, c. 1887
(Hornaday, Taxidermy and Zoological Collecting, 1891:152, Plate IX)
3) Completed manikin for the great bull, c. 1887
(Hornaday, Taxidermy and Zoological Collecting, 1891:156, Plate X)
4) William Hornaday in the taxidermy studio, U.S. National Museum, c. 1880
(Smithsonian Institution Archives. Image #6071)
5) Restoration of the great bull, 1992
(Atcheson photo, Atcheson Taxidermy, Butte, MT)
6) Great bull restored, 2015
(Author's photo)
7) William Hornaday holding leashed bison calf, 'Sandy,' 1886
(Smithsonian Institution Archives. Negative #74-12338, RU-95, Box 13, Folder 39)
8) Mounted calf, Sandy, in the Bison Group, 2009
(Author's photo)
1) American Bison Group in the U.S. National Museum, c. 1900-1910
(Smithsonian Institution Archives. Negative #14370, RU-95, Box43)
2) Partially-completed manikin for the great bull, American Bison Group, c. 1887
(Hornaday, Taxidermy and Zoological Collecting, 1891:152, Plate IX)
3) Completed manikin for the great bull, c. 1887
(Hornaday, Taxidermy and Zoological Collecting, 1891:156, Plate X)
4) William Hornaday in the taxidermy studio, U.S. National Museum, c. 1880
(Smithsonian Institution Archives. Image #6071)
5) Restoration of the great bull, 1992
(Atcheson photo, Atcheson Taxidermy, Butte, MT)
6) Great bull restored, 2015
(Author's photo)
7) William Hornaday holding leashed bison calf, 'Sandy,' 1886
(Smithsonian Institution Archives. Negative #74-12338, RU-95, Box 13, Folder 39)
8) Mounted calf, Sandy, in the Bison Group, 2009
(Author's photo)