Takeshi Yamada at Museum of World Wonders, June 2006 (photograph by Merryl Kafka)

This article features subjects matters such as super realism artworks, today’s taxidermy, craftsmanship of taxidermists, advancement of taxidermy technology, Victorian antique taxidermy, freak animal taxidermy, circus sideshow gaffs, and the transformation of the art of taxidermy.

When people see your oil painting of a fish on the canvas, they do NOT ask you whether it is made of any body parts of real fish or not. This is because the answer is simply obvious. People might ask you whether it is a photograph or not if your painting is rendered so masterly that it resembles a photograph; however, when you show your masterfully crafted sculpture of a fish, you WILL be asked whether it is made of any body parts of real fish or not.

Basket Bone Ray of Red Sea Island (drawing and taxidermy) by Takeshi Yamada, 2006. This Living Fossil is also a “missing link” between the ancient fish with cartilage (like the shark) and the modern fish with bones. This is the only one known species of ray with advanced bone structures, which resembles woven basket or an escutcheon. Many marine biologists believe this animal became extinct recently. This is one of Yamada’s gaffs displayed at Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Gallery in Brooklyn, New York in the summer of 2006.

For me, art of taxidermy – art of representing dead animals - is all about how to manipulate the raw materials (whether it is a real carcasses or man-made materials) to award it an eternal second life with original appearance for permanent display. Talking about taxidermy is talking about the changes of this industry with ever increasing technological advancement and introduction of new materials. Talking about taxidermy is also talking about the “perception” of people’s eyes and mind.  

“New Orleans, French Quarter, Night Scene #1”, oil on canvas 29x21, 1983, by Takeshi Yamada. This is one of the series of oil paintings simulating the hand-enhanced black and white photograph. Many layers of translucent monochrome paint were painstakingly applied with small soft round brushes by the hand of Yamada to create the almost magical and eerie visual effect of this masterpiece.

“Heaven and Hell: Angels at Rockefeller Center of New York City”, oil on canvas, 36x48 inch, 1985, by Takeshi Yamada, created in the style of “Super Realism”, “Ultra Realism”, “Highper Realism” or “Photo Realism”. Every single detail of resource photographs was rendered by Yamada’s hand with tiny soft brushes with many layers of translucent oil paint to achieve the final appearance of this photograph-like painting.

For example, for most people, the most familiar taxidermy works maybe the giant dinosaurs and their skeletal bones displayed side by side in the Grand Hall of the palace-like Natural History Museum which they visited on school trips. They believe they are both “real”. Unfortunately, they are not correct. The truth of the matter is that those life-like dinosaurs and their skeletal bones proudly displayed on the museum floor are both fabricated models made with man-made materials. In short, those taxidermies are not “real” in “their” definition. The same can be said to almost every single salt water fish and many cold water fish taxidermy proudly displayed at the same prestigious museum. These taxidermy animals were also constructed with man-made materials with no real body parts of the animals at all.

Giant dinosaurs’ skeletons completely made of man-made materials, proudly displayed at American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan, New York City.

I believe I confused your mind and brain enough already at this point, so, I want to back up a little bit and start from the top – from the very basic of industry practice of taxidermy.     

Taxidermy is a general term describing the many methods of reproducing a life-like life-size three-dimensional representation of an animal for permanent display. In some cases, the actual skin (including the fur, feathers, exoskeletons or scales) of the specimen is preserved and mounted over an artificial armature. In other cases, the specimen is reproduced completely with man-made materials.

A box full of variety of exotic arthropod specimens for sale at gift shops. (100% pure and real traditional taxidermy). Every single body parts of the original specimen are preserved.

The word "taxidermy" is derived from two ancient Greek words; taxis, meaning movement; and derma, meaning skin. Therefore, loosely translated, taxidermy means “the movement of skin” or  “arrangement of skin”. This is a fairly appropriate definition as many taxidermy procedures involve removing the natural skin from the specimen, replacing this skin over an artificial body, and adjusting the skin until it appears life-like. Taxidermy is the art of mounting or reproducing animals for peremanent display, research, study, or art/entertainment. Taxidermy is a practice generally done with vertebrates, but occasionally with invertebrate animals such as insects, spiders, crabs, lobsters, etc.

Taxidermist at work. Early 20th century photograph

The word “taxidermist” traditionally means “a person skilled in taxidermy”; “a craftsman who stuffs and mounts the skins of animals for display”. It is synonymous to animal stuffer or stuffer.

Traditionally, taxidermists do not treat plants, still life, fossilized animals, or minerals. Reproducing or duplicating the motions of live animals by installing electrical mechanical devices inside of the taxidermy is also not considered to be the job of licenced taxidermists at this point.  

Having said this dictionary definition of taxidermy, I want to feature what the State of Alaska stated on the subject. According to their document, strangely, a taxidermist is not a reallly taxidermist at all when he do not engage his profession “for monatary gain”. By the same token, according to their document, it is also not a taxidermy when no animal parts were used. 

In recent years, while some people have a taxidermist preserve their hunting quarry as a trophy (entertainment), others may use taxidermy to preserve animals for educational, cultural, scientific, or historical purposes. These aspects of taxidermy became more and more important among both professionals and amateurs. For example, taxidermy may be used most effectively in the event of the death of a creature in the lists of the “Threatened Species” and “Endangered Species”. It may also be used in other cases in which preservation of the carcass is vital, such as if the creature is unique to its species – rare numbers (small numbers in general or large numbers in a unique limited area), size (largest or smallest, heaviest or lightest), color (albino, color varieties), age (oldest), genetic physical abnormality (“freaks” of nature), etc.

"Musei Wormiani Historia", the frontispiece from the Museum Wormianum depicting Ole Worm's cabinet of curiosities in 1655. Note the variety of taxidermy specimens on display. Cabinets of natural curiosities (also known as Cabinets of curiosities, Wunderkammer or wonder-rooms) were the precursors of today’s natural history museums. Essentially, they were collections, displayed in cabinets, of interesting specimens found in nature, including everything from insects to seashells, to plants to fossils, to monstrosities such as two-headed animals. The first ones appeared around 1500 in the courts of Italian princes but, by the following century, they were quite popular and widespread.

The East wall of Takeshi Yamada’s Museum of World Wonders in Coney Island area of Brooklyn, New York. “Battle of Coney Island” oil painting on canvas on display is 48 x 72 inch. Note the varieties of taxidermy artworks of rare and extinct giant invertebrate species by Takeshi Yamada. (Photograph by Eriko N. Bond in June, 2006)

The North wall of Takeshi Yamada’s Museum of World Wonders in Coney Island area of Brooklyn, New York. The Fiji mermaid is 72 inch. (Photograph by Eriko N. Bond in June, 2006)

The modern practice of taxidermy incorporates many crafts, such as carpentry, woodworking, tanning, molding and casting; but it also requires “artistic” talent, including the art of drawing, painting, and sculpture. For example, in a modern deer head mount, the only natural parts of the animal used are the antlers and the skin. All of the other organs and tissues are recreated with man-made materials. The eyes are made from glass, the eyelids are sculpted from clay, the soft tissues of the nose and mouth are sculpted from epoxy or wax, and the mannikin or "form" (which incorporates the anatomy of each muscle and vein) is made from polyurethane foam. At the end, even in this truly “traditional”, “authentic”, “academic”, “conservative”, and “100% genuine” style of taxidermy, less than 10% of real animal is preserved for permanent display. (In another words, over 90% of the taxidermy is consists of man-made materials.)

(left) A re-creation of a sailfish made entirely from man-made material today

(right) A taxidermy fish with skin-mounted body with artificial (fiberglass) head and fins

(left) A state-of-the-art fiberglass fish “blank” for 16 pound steelhead taxidermy ready to be painted based on your photograph.

(right) Detail showing paper-thin super realistic fin.

Today, some taxidermy mounts (most notably saltwater fish) do not contain any parts of the animal at all. They are completely re-created from man-made materials. In this case, the “taxidermies” can be ALSO categorized as “artworks” and “sculptures”.

This style of taxidermy is ideal for “catch-and-release” anglers, who can release their game fish unharmed, and can still have a life-sized trophy produced from a good color photo and measurements. In fact, most saltwater fish (as well as many cold water fish) are entirely recreated from man-made materials for museums, nature centers, universities, and collectors today. Fish taxidermy is the one area of highly specialized wildlife art where the artist must totally recreate the colors of the skin all over the animal. It may hard to believe but among professionals, it is generally agreed that the most difficult branch of taxidermy is fish mounting. Creating a natural-looking, technically accurate, and life-like fish mount can be a real challenge. The ability to draw, paint, mix colors, and sculpt are shared among the world's best fish taxidermists - they are truly outstanding top class highly specialized super realism artists.

 
In bird taxidermy, the taxidermist must paint the legs, feet, and bill, but the feathers retain their natural colors. In mammal taxidermy, the taxidermist must paint the nose and eyes, but the fur requires no color correction. In fish taxidermy, however, the taxidermist has to paint every square inch of the specimen, and make it appear natural. This is due to the fact that most of the color goes away, leaving only brownish patterns on the skin and scales when a fish skin dries. There are a lot of different ways to produce a fish mount, and fish taxidermists usually are required to choose different mounting methods to match their particular subjects.

Traditionally, gameheads of North America are among the most frequently mounted specimens in taxidermy. Their popularity is unsurpassed among both taxidermists and sportsmen alike. Deer, elk, and pronghorn antelope make up the vast majority of North American mounts. Nevertheless, bear, cougar, wild boar, caribou, mountain sheep and mountain goats are also popular subjects for gamehead display. The quality and technology of Gamehead mounting has progressed enormously in the past two decades due to the dramatic new technological advancement utilized in this old industry.  

(left) Antelope Game Head Mannikin            (right)  Black Bear Game Head Mannikin

(left) fiberglass ears                              (right) fiberglass Black Bear nose

Artificial glass eyes

Among professionals, it is commonly agreed that “Blue ribbon” mounts from as little as ten years ago wouldn't even rate an honorable mention in today's tough taxidermy competitions. This is simple due to the today’s advanced supplies, tools, sophisticated technologies, and life-like body parts used for taxidermy. Talking about the quality of today’s taxidermy means talking about availability of good manikins. In the past, wildlife experts have painstakingly sculpted models from scratch, using the natural skull, a wooden armature, and fillers. Then, he had to sculpt the muscle detail in clay or mache. These are extremely labor intensive and time requiring steps, which have taken weeks or even months to undertake. To make it worse, despite the best effort of the taxidermist, most of the time, the results did not do justice to the live animal. Today, fortunately, these rather painful, inefficient, and time-consuming steps were completely replaced by simply purchasing high quality urethane manikins. The man-made fabricated models like ones shown above are mass produced and are available for any taxidermist to use with quite economical prices today. They are also offered in a wide variety of sizes and poses to fit almost any specimen.

Postcards of “Two-headed Lamb” and “Two-headed and four-eyed Kitten” by Walter Potter. These freak animal taxidermies are collection of Bramber Museum (around 1871).

 “Kitten with eight legs and two tails” by Walter Potter, collection of Bramber Museum (around 1871).

Mountain Hare by Peter Spicer (1839-1935). Spicer is regarded as one of the greatest British taxidermists. His cased work, Victorian style antique taxidermy, is characterized by evocative painted backdrops and highly realistic bases made from papier-mâché with dried vegetation, real pebbles etc. The signed pebble is located to the right of the case, which was Spicer's trade mark.

Today, the life-like replica/reproductions of animal skulls, skeletons, teeth, claws, turtle shells etc. are also sold at taxidermy stores and fancy gift shops at shopping malls. Some of the hand-painted replicas are so real that they are virtually indistinguishable from the Original by the eyes. Some of the companies also produce “alien grey skull” and “big foot footprint” with the same technology and attentions to details for collectors. Needless to say, movies and TV commercials can be good outlets for skilled artists, circus sideshow gaff builders and taxidermists today.

A 15" long silicone rubber two-headed fish puppet featured in TV commercial of a steak house by a special effect company in California.

The technological advancement, availability of new materials and economically priced high quality man-made body parts of animals stated above for taxidermists (both amateurs and professionals) also greatly contributed the advancement of the quality of “outsider” taxidermy artworks created for circus sideshows, collectors of curiosities, TV shows, and movies by gaff builders, conceptual artists, prop artists and special effect artists.

It should be noted that the names of above mentioned man-enhanced or man-made specimens change according to how they are used and/or presented to people. When they are used for the exhibitions of American circus sideshows, they are called “gaffs”. When they are used for the productions of TV commercials and movies, they are called props. When they are displayed at fine art galleries and fine art museums, they are called artworks.

Examples of today’s state of the art, life-like, life-size, super-realistic mass-produced mannequins. These are much more realistic than traditional wax figures. The quality of the mannequins improved dramatically in the last few decades. These mannequins are historically not called “taxidermy” or even “reproduction” or “replica” – although they perfectly fit the today’s definitions of “taxidermy”. Today, there are also numbers of internationally recognized fine art sculptors who create their “artworks” by using body parts of mannequins.

The meaning of the word changes over the time. To put the meaning of word “taxidermy” in proper perspective, I wan to give a few examples of what happened to the word “picture” to the main stream art world. When the time of Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael in Italy, in the art world, a picture was a flat surface realistically representing subject matters of Christianity and important historical people by the human hand. There were no independent pictures representing landscapes, city scenes, still life, animals, plants, or even common people because they were not considered as art then. For these master artists, a picture produced by dripping automotive paint from with a wooden stick (not even a brush) onto the canvas placed on the floor would NEVER be considered as a picture. What happened to the modern art world (in the 20th century in America) must seem complete madness and chaos to those truly great artists. Today, this dripping picture is considered as truly great masterpiece and the artist is called “Father of American Modern Art”. His name is Jackson Pollock or better known as Jack the Dripper. Here is another example; today, we even do not have to use our hands to create a picture. We could create an absolutely realistic picture by simply pressing a button on a box. This must also sounds like magic to those great masters of the high Renaissance. This form of “magically” producing a picture is simply called “photography” and the stores to process this form of picture can be found any cities today.

In addition, I want to present one more example about the transformation of the meaning of the word “artwork”. In the early 20th century, (1916 and 1917 to be exact), there was an artist who delivered a urinal to a local fine art gallery and declared it is an “artwork”. If it was done by a drunken college freshman in California, I am quite sure that it was simply being laughed at. Nevertheless, his work and ideas produced considerable influence on the development of post-World War II Western art. To make the situation worse, his advice to modern art collectors even helped shaping the tastes of the Western art world. This mad man’s influence even continues into the 21st century. His name is Marcel Duchamp and his invention of new art form is “readymade”. Being influenced by this French man, a new generation of artists emerged in America. A plain blank unaltered normal sheet of typing paper pinned on the wall, plain unaltered common wooden board leaning against the wall, a pile of grain of rice on the floor, pollens of flowers sprayed on the ground, and even the empty gallery room itself became “artworks”. Today, anythings can be  “artworks” simply because artists say so and display them at fine art galleries.

By the same token, the word “taxidermy” changed quiet a bit and it is still changing as we speak. For example, currently, many engineers are now working on a machine which could produce taxidermy of an animal by simply pressing a button. I am not joking and this is not science fiction. In fact, this WAS already successfully achieved by engineers when they produce a new small computer circuit board by directing focused sharp laser light beam into a small tank filled with liquid silicon manipulated by the electric signals controlled by a computer. This form of making a prototype model (pre-production) is much faster and cheaper than making a model, mold, and casting manually. I personally visited several of such computer engineers’ laboratories when I worked as a senior technical language consultant for Japanese delegations when they visited Chicago in late 1990’s. "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic", Arthur C. Clarke once said. (Clarke is one of the most celebrated science fiction authors of our time.)

END

All rights reserved by Takeshi Yamada, Museum of World Wonders, August 2006

Special thanks to Eriko N. Bond, Lauren D. Travis, and Diane M. Taros.