Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins
Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins ( * February 8, 1807; † January 27, 1894 in London ) was an English sculptor, illustrator and naturalist. His sculptures made dinosaurs for mass cultural phenomenon and influenced her image in the 19th century. He was one of the most popular illustrators of natural history books of his time.
Dinosaurs in Sydenham
On the initiative of Prince Albert, the husband of Queen Victoria, life-size sculptures of dinosaurs were erected in the grounds of Crystal Palace. On the one hand should be so taught the masses. On the other hand, it was the world public to perform impressively large, prehistoric history of Britain before his eyes. In collaboration with Richard Owen, the then leading paleontologists, Hawkins made on 33 monumental figures, which were inaugurated in 1854. This is the oldest sculptural representation of the dinosaur does not match the current state of the science. So today is known that dinosaurs are more closely related to the crocodiles and birds than mammals and many bipedal dinosaurs were moving ( bipedalism ). The chosen representation of Hawkins explained by the history of science context. After Owens view ( archetypes ) dinosaurs mammal -like animals had been and Hawkins was a follower of Cuvier's theory of types. Therefore, there must have been great from lizard type carni - and herbivorous land animals - as it currently exists it from the mammalian type. Therefore Hawkins reconstructed them as large mammals with reptilian scales.
The dinosaurs representation of Owen and Hawkins turned against the early theories of evolution and oppose the ascending Scala Naturae, populated by a long gone era of the geological era with supposedly more sophisticated lizard species, as there is this currently.
The sculptures of Hawkins became one of the most sensational of Victorian England. They remained until today, have been restored for £ 4 million and opened in 2002 by Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh officially new.
Dinosaurs in New York
1868 Hawkins traveled to the United States. Here fossils of dinosaurs had also been found. For the American Museum of Natural History in New York, he should set up a, the London scenery comparable installation with prehistoric animals. However, this project fell victim to political squabbles. His workshop is located with work in progress sculptures are destroyed by radicals.
Hawkins sets including at the Smithsonian Institution and Princeton University, numerous skeletons of dinosaurs together, and completed this artificially. In April 1879 he returned to England where he died in 1894.
Further Reading
- Valerie Bramwell: All in the Bones: A Biography of Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins. Academy of Natural Sciences, 2008. ISBN 0910006652