Sunday Image: Taxidermy
Mar 28, 2010 in Books, Sunday Image
What compels people to want to transform animals into mantelpiece trophies, tacky roadside totems, or even diorama specimens? On the one hand, nothing seems as ludicrous as taking an animal and transforming it into a replica of itself. Why kill it in the first place? On the other hand, few objects are as strangely alluring as Flaubert’s parrot, Goethe’s kingfisher, or Truman Capote’s rattlesnake. Or, for that matter, as out of context as, say, Fenway Partners’ upright grizzly bear in its corporate boardroom in Manhattan. - from Melissa Milgrom’s Still Life: Adventures in Taxidermy
Photo from Field Museum library archive.