Artistic and scientific taxidermy and modelling; a manual of instruction in the methods of preserving and reproducing the correct form of all natural ... a chapter on the modelling of foliage - Softcover
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1896 edition. Excerpt: ...was before insisted upon in Practical Taxidermy, viz. that no taxidermist ever has mounted, or ever will mount, a fish, amphibian, reptile, or cetacean even decently, or with more than a remote approximation to nature, by any of the resources of their art known to them, and in this sweeping condemnation are included all who are in any way famous in fish-taxidermy; they and their patrons are self-deceived and misguided, and the sooner this patent fact is recognised the better for art. Take a pike as a familiar example, and take a thousand taxidermists; how many of this number are there who can make such a fish other than a ghastly elongated mummy, all ridges and bumps, and utterly unlike nature in many points? Probably one, and that one the great fish-taxidermist par excellence (whoever he may be); and even he, although by his mistaken art making it plump and fairly respectable in shape, never does, and never can do anything with the head and the fleshy bases of the fins. Those parts are simply mummified; all the cartilage has shrunk, and there is a grinning death's-head upon a plumped-out body. The replacement of shrunken cartilage, by wax or other modelling-media, inside or outside the skin, is a fallacy, and only in the hands of a most expert and artistic modeller does it attain a measure of success. Be quite sure, therefore, that if any taxidermist, or his patron, tells you that he can " stuff a fish like life," he deserves the retort discourteous. If fishermen--unless their notorious shyness of the truth blinds them to their own interests--would recognise these facts, and would not be so anxious to save the mere skin of their " finny prey," and would be clever enough to appreciate an absolutely exact copy of it, unchangeable and...
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- PublisherRareBooksClub.com
- Publication date2012
- ISBN 10 1236680286
- ISBN 13 9781236680280
- BindingPaperback
- Number of pages138
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