Re: THE NEW DINOSAURS (and other books)

[Danvarner@aol.com]

In a message dated 11/17/00 6:33:12 PM Pacific Standard Time, 
Dinogeorge@aol.com writes:

<< Greg's dino restorations all show the influence of Bakker's picture, 
 sometimes scaled up to tyrannosaur proportions, and indeed it is through 
many 
 of Greg's paintings that the Bakker picture's influence has propagated. 
 Indeed, Greg was Bakker's grad student for a couple of years, and when I 
 first met Greg, back in 1978 or thereabouts, he acknowledged how much that 
 one picture meant to both him and to dinosaur restoration in general.>>

  We're all hip to that. But still it's Greg's running theropod image that's 
the paradigm. Also, it's only fair to state that it was Sarah Landry's 
drawing of a feathered Syntarsis in Bakker's article in Scientific American 
that flabbergasted the world if we are really talking influence here. People 
were all talking up that issue as I remember.
  
 <<There was no "dinosaur renaissance" following that Knight painting.>>

  Say what!? Well, if not "renaissance" what do you call it then? The world 
got to know dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals through Knight. Does Luis 
Rey represent dinosaur Mexican Expressionism? (Hey, that's not bad!) These 
labels are getting a little silly. 

<< Incidentally, Ornitholestes and  Archaeopteryx come from different 
continents, so one or the other of them in the painting isn't.>>
 
  It's true they are from different continents... now...
  I've been to the AMNH to see the "Fighting Dinosaurs" three times and I'm 
really amazed at the similarity between the pose of the "fighting" 
Velociraptor and Knight's Ornitholestes. Substitute a Protoceratops head for 
the Archaeopteryx. Also note the tails. Another interesting point is that, at 
least with the velociraptors, the only hyper-flexed #2 killer claw is 
imbedded in the neck of the Protocertops. Pete Von Sholly argued this over 
and over here in bygone days. V V.