On display
Museum experts are exploring how to bring the science dioramas of yore into the 21st century, while ensuring scientific accuracy and acknowledging past biases, freelance writer Amber Dance reported in “The diorama dilemma.”
Reader Gary Hoyle reminisced about his time working as an exhibits artist and curator of natural history at the Maine State Museum. Hoyle recounted working with esteemed diorama painter Fred Scherer and learning about another renowned diorama artist, James Perry Wilson.
“Wilson was a trained architect draftsman who had worked to develop a grid pattern that minimized the distortion of viewing a curved background against the three-dimensional foreground of dioramas. His and Fred’s sensitivity to light and the colors of nature astound me still,” Hoyle wrote. “When painting backgrounds, they consciously modified colors to reduce the green tint from the plate glass in the viewing window.”…