nature notes

The Herbert art gallery nature notes exhibition

This exhibition focuses on nature and how it changes throughout the seasons using mostly taxidermy and some paintings along with a sensory table for each season in the centre of the room. I attended this exhibition to hopefully to gain insight into natural forms and textures such as furs and feathers. The major factor in choosing to go to the exhibition is my theme of technology in which this exhibition focuses solely on nature therefore fits into part of my theme. All of the taxidermy used is form animals that died of natural causes.

Spring

Spring is the time of birth and nesting therefore the exhibition therefore the case representing spring was filled with taxidermy of young animals and nests of various types of birds. Each creature had a number and corresponding label. What can be observed from the spring table is that the furs of younger animals are far finer and also in many occasions darker in colour to match the earth below making it harder for predators to distinguish them while the learn of their surroundings. The sensory table consisted of a taxidermy rabbit and tubs containing artificial scents of the animals themselves and buttons that played sounds consisting of the calls of young animals and birds. The sensory table was interesting as visitors were actually allowed to touch the rabbit’s fur.

Summer

During the summer time the young of organisms are raised and taught 

To fend for themselves, summer is also the time in which rescores are most abundant as plants are able to photosynthesise more than in any other season, however the main risk of the hot summers is the risk of dehydration in both plants and animals. The case displaying summer consisted of mostly birds as this is when migrating birds visit England to take advantage of the abundance of recourses, thus greatly increasing the bird population, insects also take advantage of this and provide food for birds and featured in a smaller separate display case. Springs sensory table had a taxidermy mouse which could be stroked gently to feel the texture of the fur, while birdsongs and insect calls could be herd when one of the buttons on the table was pressed.

Autumn

This display was my favourite of the four showing a combination of mammals and food sources such as berries that animals gorge themselves on to prepare for the cold, fruitless winter. Within the main case was an adult fox, badger, rabbit and mole showing fully grown creatures allows for a comparison to be made with the first case, also the animals observed within the autumn case were bigger than I thought they would be, for example, the fox stood way above what I thought it would be, the badger also was taller than I expected. This case was useful because it allowed for the viewer to compare how animals have changed from spring to autumn form the colour of fur to the size of their bodies, giving the viewer a good representation of growth. The sensory table featured a taxidermy fox upon touch was surprisingly soft as I expected the fur to be far more coarse, while the sounds were of a fox, badger and other shown animal calls.

Winter

Like summer the winter case also consisted of mostly birds as more iconic winter birds such as robins become more visible as many birds leave to warmer climates, also there are many types of flora and berries that provide as a food source for wildlife. The sensory table in the winter display included a crow and other various animal sounds and scents, the crows feathers were soft to touch also the bird was larger than expected also the details of the feathers were more visible as it is almost impossible to be that close to a crow in the wild.

Summary

As this exhibition consisted of mostly taxidermy it could not be used to examine art techniques, however this exhibition has been useful to observe and document natural form as the textures of feathers and furs can be seen and also the colours are also visible allowing for a close up view of wildlife. The paintings within this exhibition mostly consists of watercolour studies of plants, this is not entirely useful in terms of techniques however some of the other paintings do use some interesting techniques such as printmaking and oil paintings to depict natural forms. Overall this exhibition was useful to allow me to study natural forms and how colours and forms change throughout the seasons. The sensory aspects of the exhibition were very interesting however my main criticism for these is that I was not able to perceive the scents that were contained in boxes very well and found it hard to distinguish them from each other though other people did not seen to have this issue, therefore I have not included them in the season paragraphs, despite that I did find the sensory tables quite useful as it has allowed me to further my knowledge of the sounds of various animals and of the textures of their fur and feathers.