BETWEEN TRUTH AND ABSURDITY? TURN-OF-THE-CENTURY TAXIDERMISTS LOOK AT SNAPSHOTS OF ANIMALS

The article considers a parallel between photography and taxidermy and interrogates the attitudes to instant photography as a way of acquiring and communicating scientific knowledge by the professional community of taxidermists at the turn of the twentieth century. The debates as to whether snapshots of animals could serve as models for taxidermy shed light on the different approaches to visualization of nature in the historical period marked by the paradigm of scientific objectivity, as described in the seminal work by Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison. As the article shows taxidermists equally committed to the ideal of objectivity could welcome the increased knowledge on the mechanics of animal movements achieved through photography, or dismiss the information thus obtained as irrelevant. The article describes both positions and analyzes the influences which might have shaped them. The debate about the applicability of photography in general and instant photography in particular as a model for making stuffed animals illustrates the mobility of boundaries and the tense relationship between science and art, innovation and canon, visual and material, the representation of phenomena and communication of their essence to a wide audience