146 American Anthropologist Vol. 105, No. 1 March 2003
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Representation and Aesthetics in Paleo-Art:An Interview with
John GurcheD I A N A L . K O E P F E RHunter College, City
University of New York
"Working in the Mesozoic is like taking an exotic vaca-tion, but
the evolution of humans is home," says JohnGurche, a paleo-artist
trained in anthropology and paleon-tology. Gurche has made a career
of reconstructing prehis-toric life in sculpture and painting. The
recipient of the2000 John Landsendorf Award for Paleo-art, his work
hasappeared in the pages of National Geographic,
Smithsonian,Discover, and Natural History magazines and is on
exhibitat the American Museum of Natural History, the Field Mu-seum
in Chicago, and the Smithsonian. We asked Gurche,whose
reconstruction of an Australopithecus africanus ap-pears on the
cover of this issue of American Anthropologistto discuss his ideas
about the anatomical connections andemotional fascination that
living humans have with bothour living primate and fossil
relatives. With Gurche'swork, as well as with the other artists
whose work is re-viewed in this Visual Anthropology section, we
were inter-ested in the relationship of scientific theorization of
hu-man origins and artistic representations of them. In
myconversations with Gurche, we discussed the challenges
ofconstructing images whose meanings and implications in-herently
change with new fossil discoveries, and that existin a field of
competing theories of human origins.
Continually in pursuit of an aesthetic portrayal basedon the
best science possible, Gurche has spent 18 yearsbuilding a detailed
knowledge of skeletal and soft-tissueanatomy through an intensive
program of primate dissec-tion and in-depth studies of fossil
hominids. Because ofhis commitment to scientific evidence for his
drawings hehas turned down commissions to reconstruct hominids
for
which the preserved anatomical information is "skimpy,"yet in
his artistic exploration Gurche attempts to take theviewer beyond
clinical science to imagine and experiencean association with these
sometimes "humanlike" creatures.
Diana Koepfer: How do you decide which aspects of theprimate
musculoskeletal systems to apply to the earlyhominids?
John Gurche: As with most historical sciences, the presentis the
key to the past. A fossil skeleton has much to tell ifyou use
anatomical relationships in living relatives as aguide to "reading"
the skeleton. Muscle scars on the boneprovide information about the
position and developmentof various muscles. The cross-sectional
geometry of longbones carries information about the mechanical
loadingof the bone when it was alive and joint surfaces give anidea
of range of motion.
Faces, however, present a special set of problems, and itis on
this area that I've focused most intensely in my dis-section work.
Muscle scars are helpful for the chewing andsome of the facial
muscles. There is a broad range of masti-catory anatomies among
living apes and humans, andthese can be correlated with the
development and ar-rangement of muscle scars on the skull. This
allows predic-tion of the form of masseter and temporalis in the
fossilforms. Among the hundreds of measurements that can betaken of
soft tissue and bony anatomy within a face, thereare some strong
correlations that apply to both the Africanapes and humans. If a
bony anatomy-soft tissue relation-ship characterizes only humans,
but not African apes, Ican't use it in the reconstruction of an
early hominicL Butif the relationship holds for the entire group,
then you'vegot something useful.
Visual Anthropology 147
DK: Where does theory come into play? How influentialhave
disciplinary trends been in directing your applica-tions of the
anatomical evidence?
JG: I rely heavily on consultation with experts, and,
some-times, as paleoanthropology is an incredibly contentiousfield,
the advice of two scientists will be mutually exclu-sive. In that
case I take a closer look at the relevant anat-omy and try to find
experts with no "ax to grind." Thiscan result in a change that is
unacceptable to one or theother school of thought. For example, if
I show australo-pithecines foraging for fruit in trees, I
immediately alien-ate 20 anthropologists and their students. They
are fo-cused on the fact that the strongest direction of
naturalselection was towards becoming a better biped while onthe
ground, even to the point of sacrificing some climbingadaptations.
Other experts, however, point out that thisdoes not mean that
australopithecines did not forage intrees. I have considered doing
a drawing entitled Waitingfor the Figs to Fall, showing
australopithecines standing onthe ground, looking impatiently at
their watches.
DK: Were you telling a story with the image of the
Aus-tralopithecus africanus on the cover? The position of thebody
and the partial presentation of the face suggest youwere trying to
covey something other than a straightfor-ward clinical
representation.
JG: I had no special story in mind while working on it,
butduring the process I spent a lot of time staring at drawingsof
the human form by Renaissance artists, wondering,"What would they
have made of australopithecines?" Forme, and I suspect for many,
the visual power of the hu-man form extends to our closest living
and fossil relatives.The drawing on the cover of this month's
American An-thropologist is part of a collection, which will be
publishedin 2005 in a large-format art book entitled Lost
Anatomies,This collection focuses purely on the visual aesthetics
ofthe evolving human form and its components. It exploresthe edge
of what whispers "human" to us on an aestheticand gut level. The
africanus on the cover shows a bodyform that is not identical to
the modern human form butis hauntingly familiar in some aspects. It
is the visualpower of this "edge of humanness" that I hope I've
cap-tured in the drawing.
DK: It indeed conveys an intensity of emotion not presentin your
more stoic black-and-white drawings. Does that"whisper of human"
apply to emotions as well? Do youconceptualize the emotions of
early hominids in terms ofhuman emotions?
JG: The image will hopefully evoke an emotional responsefrom
present-day viewers, but that's not the same thing asimplying
humanlike emotions in a rwo-million-year-oldhominid. I wouldn't.
Having said that, our closest livingrelatives, the chimpanzees,
express an enormous range ofemotions. When I draw early hominids, I
try to keep thatin mind.
DK: What about the other more interpretive aspects ofphysical
appearance such as skin color and body hair?How much does your
personal, or the public's, concep-tions of human aesthetics
influence your choices?
JG: You can't really extrapolate the anatomical specifics orbody
form aesthetics of modern humans for early homi-nids, but sometimes
a biological relationship found in liv-ing forms can be useful. For
example, we understand skincolor in living human populations as a
function of opti-mum amounts of absorbed sunlight at different
latitudes.This is useful in choosing skin color for tropical or
temper-ate-zone early hominids. The amount of body hair has torely
on educated guesswork concerning the evolutionarytiming of our
enhanced sweat gland cooling system,which would function at a
disadvantage under a thick coatof fur. For many of the Lost
Anatomies drawings, includingthe cover image, I've stripped away
body and head hair sothat the anatomy can be seen.
DK: Why do this specifically for the Lost Anatomies
draw-ings?
JG; The Lost Anatomies project represents my chance totake off
the didactic lid. The science behind it is importantas a launch
platform, but not the point of the drawing.
DK: As opposed to when you work on a commissionedpiece, for say
the National Geographic or other publication?
JG: Work for scientific publications is intended to illumi-nate
something specific. The trick for anyone working inthis field is to
find the area of overlap between an imagethat conveys the desired
information and one that is aes-thetically powerful.
DK: Does this balance shift then for the drawings in theLost
Anatomies collection?
JG: While it is still very important to base the image onthe
best scientific information available, it does not neces-sarily
have to convey specific information. If, for example,as a drawing
develops, the image takes a left turn that hasgreat aesthetic
potential, which also obscures some of thescientific information
that the drawing might convey, Iam free to pursue that direction.
Let's say I am working ona drawing of a face, for which I have done
a three-dimen-sional reconstruction in order to get the anatomical
specif-ics right. As I add layers to the drawing,
"sedimentologi-cal" textures develop. The edges of the face are
lost, butthe face begins to express a presence faintly
glimpsedacross great stretches of time. The information that
isthere is still correct, but not all of the information thatcould
be conveyed by such a drawing is present.
DK: This is really where science and art come together.
JG: Science and art have different goals and methodolo-gies, but
they can augment each other tremendously. Ifyou create a beautiful
image that is not consistent with thescientific evidence, you've
just created a fantasy. If it does
