Transcript of interview with Steve Quinn, Senior Project Manager, American Museum of Natural History, about the history of the diorama.
The term diorama was first coined by Daguerre and he first patented the diorama in 1822. The word diorama is from Greek: dia "through" and horama "as is seen". So it could be translated roughly as "to see through". I believe this refers to the frame-like proscenium that you view in to a diorama, through and into the diorama. That frame shields your eye and conceals your vanishing points and creates this illusionary world beyond that frame. So dioramas first appear in the late 1700s, early 1800s as illusionistic, theatrical installations. It wasn't until the late 1800s, early 1900s that they were utilized by science museums for teaching science and educating the public.
Habitat group dioramas really emerged here at the American Museum of Natural History in the late 1800s, early 1900s when there were great environmental concerns among the scientific community. Those concerns were stemmed by habitat destruction and also the wanton slaughter of animals for food—railroads were opening up the country at this time, the great western frontier was disappearing, the vast bison herds were vanishing—and remember that this was prior to film or cameras or any of the media that we take for granted today. So the scientists and curators in science museums that were concerned about vanishing wilderness and wildlife were looking for some medium to tell the story—to evoke an awareness and appreciation for nature and wildlife. First, they utilized simply mounted specimens. That grew and evolved into an attempt to gather the immediate vicinity of that animal's habitat and environment and those appeared as four-sided glass cases. That then grew into an exhibit form that featured a painted background that incorporated a more scenic view of the animal's environment. Then that grew once again into the curved background that we have in our diorama halls today.
I believe the reason why they are so popular is that they evoke the same emotional response to viewing wildlife in nature. That same epiphany that occurs when one experiences beauty and wonder in the natural world. And that was exactly the intent of the curatorial staff: to recreate nature within the walls of the Museum and attempt to raise awareness and strike an emotional chord among visitors, to make them concerned about the loss and disappearance of wildlife.
I think the experience is one of encountering wildlife in it's natural environment under natural conditions. When one visits a zoo for example, animals are behaving for the most part neurotic ways in that they're confined in unnatural conditions and restrained. The diorama attempts to recreate the natural environment by sending a team of both scientists and curators to an exact location, using scientific methods to collect data, to collect photographs and field sketches and preserve specimens in order to recreate that habitat and that animal back here in the Museum's exhibitions halls. So the function of the display is to recreate that personal encounter with wildlife or with animals in the field.
I think when you think about the main purposes of a natural history museum of course you can't help feeling that it's greatest possessions are it's collections. And the reason why you come to a natural history museum is to see the real thing and to encounter the real thing. The methods that were used to collect for the dioramas and the habitat groups were so scientific and so objective in their intent that the artists were able to achieve such a close duplication of the environment and the animals depicted that the experience is very close to one in nature. So when you come to a natural history museum and experience a habitat group, essentially you really are encountering the real thing rather than a computer interactive or a video or a film or a facsimile of the real thing.
I think dioramas are important for a number of reasons. Lately I think they are becoming appreciated as the unique art forms that they are. They're also very important historically because they depict landscapes and forms of wildlife that are vanishing-landscapes that are degraded or in some cases are no longer present, they've been developed and lost. So they do have great historic importance. And they still have great value as educational tools, which was the reason why they were originally developed; to educate museum visitors on the inter-relationships between certain animal types and their environment, the vegetation that supported that particular animal life, the geology, the landforms. So they're still very valuable in teaching visitors about the environment and the wildlife that lives in that particular habitat.
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