Cody Moulton

rd

Nov. 3 2014
ART 1020

Artist Report James Gurney

Fantasy/Realist Painter
INTRODUCTION
What do you get when you combine an imagination full of fantasy and a desire to create and portray
realistic things? One would naturally assume that fantasy couldnt, or at least wouldnt, be realistic. James Gurney
is a modern artist who has blended these somewhat conflicting ideas in his artwork. His interest in archaeology
and in art have motivated him to express these thoughts and feelings through his books and paintings.

EARLY LIFE
James Gurney was born in California in 1958. Ever since he was young he had an interest in creating
things. His father was a mechanical engineer and owned a workshop. Often, James would go into his shop and
tinker with the different materials and tools. He would create many different puppets, masks, and other creative
objects. It is easy to see how interested in expression James was at an early age. His family was always encouraging
of this behavior and helped motivate him to build things in the shop often.
James also had a very strong interest in archaeology. He attended school at the University of California at
Berkley and achieved a degree in Anthropology. Ancient civilizations, fossils, and dinosaurs all fascinated him. The
2 passions he had he decided to bring together: art and archaeology. He utilized much of his knowledge of history,
fossils, and civilizations to be the content of his paintings. He chose to represent those things as if we could see
them now, blending styles of realism and fantasy together.

JAMES GURNEYS STYLE

One would naturally think that fantasy paintings couldnt be categorized under Realistic paintings.
However, its not so much that his art depicts current realities, but more historical reality (as far as we know from
our limited research and understanding) and futuristic reality (as far as we might be able to predict things). For
example, James will paint pictures of dinosaurs based on what he knows about their body and skeletal structure
from the fossils we have information about. His paintings reflect the correct proportions, attitudes and behaviors
(carnivores, herbivores etc.), and environments that would accommodate that species of dinosaur. The fantasy
comes in as he portrays these creatures in situations and circumstances as we would NOT normally see them, such
as dinosaurs and humans interacting with each other.
James Gurney had lot of influences growing up that he researched on his own, without a teacher. He selftaught himself this way through observation. Two of his biggest influences are Norman Rockwell and Howard Pyle,
both artists from the late 1800s/early 1900s. Both of their styles were realistic, and they often blended uncommon
cultures together. Norman Rockwells Golden Rule is a good example of this as he shows people of all different
ethnicities come together. Each person is depicted realistically and proportionally accurate. Howard Pyle helped to
spread the American idea of Illustration through his realistic paintings designed for stories. We will see this same
idea used in Jamess art during his Dinotopia series.

WORK FOR NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

In the 1980s, Gurneys career took off. He began a few projects with National Geographic Magazine.
Because of his understanding of ancient civilizations and his artistic abilities, National Geographic hired James to
create pictures that represented, as accurately as possible from their research, ancient cities and cultures. These
were called his geological reconstructions.
One of these reconstructions is titled Kushite King Piye (724 B.C.). It is a depiction of an Egyptian king
addressing some of his people who are shown bowing down to him as if he were a god. Not only did Gurney make
a point to construct the buildings in this painting after the manner of Egyptian architecture, he also focused on

portraying the ancient Egyptian clothing correctly. In order to do so, he travelled to meet with an archaeologist
who further instructed him about the old Egyptian attire. After learning from this archaeologist, Gurney then took
a curtain and wrapped himself in it in order to understand more fully how the material would look over a human
body in real life. He used what he learned from this observation and applied it to the Egyptian King Piye in this
painting. Gurney made a point to understand the content and context of what he was painting in order to portray
it accurately.

THE DINOTOPIA SERIES

The height of James Gurneys career came when he began a series of books called Dinotopia. Between
this series and his work in National Geographic, Gurney was defined as an illustrator. These books combine
Gurneys knowledge of dinosaur body structure, his imagination to define how muscles and colors interacted with
each creature, and his realistic style of painting. The bulk of his success is attributed to these 4 books: A Land
Apart From Time, The World Beneath, First Flight, and Journey to Chandara.
Throughout the series, Gurneys approach changes slightly. The first book A Land Apart From Time
shows a lot of foreign fictional culture. He represented the dinosaurs in his books in a way that we find much more
relatable as humans. Many people are shown riding or playing or associating with these creatures in way that we
would not normally imagine. Gurney created a world that showed us how we might have interacted with dinosaurs
had they still been alive when man walked on the earth, thus combining both reality in some ways and imagination
in other ways.
In Gurneys second book, The World Beneath, he begins to blend more modern architecture and
clothing into the Dinotopia world. The buildings contain similar architectural styles as we have observed from
ancient Greece and Rome. He has designed the columns and archways after the Greek Corinthian style. Also, in his
picture Bonnaba Meeting, he has introduced a character in a modern day suit! This not only blends cultures
together, it blends time periods together in a realistic and imaginative way.

Gurney moves away from the historical architecture we are used to seeing by the time we get to his third
book, First Flight. He has now introduced a new direction. Instead of placing us in history or even in modern
times, he has moved us far ahead to the future. His artwork depicts many different kinds of robots and technology
that is modeled after real life things. In Poseidos View we see a heavily trafficked street where people are driving
massive, robotic brontosauruses. There are also many different types of hover cars and other futuristic vehicles
throughout the picture. His color scheme has moved to a more purple/bluish feel which is often associated with
technology or the future. Gurney has still created everything in a very realistic fashion as far as proportions and
lighting goes. By using the lighting correctly it provides this fantasy painting with a sense of possibility. Also, in his
painting Air Scorpion we see again his idea to apply the physics of a real scorpion to a robotic model.
And lastly, Gurney concludes the Dinotopia series with his fourth book, Journey to Chandara. This looks
like a different story altogether almost because it no longer contains the robotics and technology of the future. It
also doesnt quite fit in with the earlier history hes used as the buildings and boats are now seemingly more
modern, at least within the last 500 years or so. The building design is much more refined and pure. The colors
seem more saturated and jump out of the painting. As we could see in The World Beneath, he uses Greek arches
and pillars again in his Sauropolis Gate. He has a lot more water in these paintings and hes made a good point to
reflect the surfaces around it off the water, thus making the picture appear much more realistic than it would
otherwise. By understanding light so well, Gurney is able to apply it using his knowledge to his imagination well.

JAMES GURNEYS RECENT PROJECTS

After Gurneys publication of the Dinotopia series, he focused on putting together 2 books in order to
teach others about realism, fantasy, color, and light when it comes to illustration. The first of these 2 books is titled
Imaginative Realism, which explains Gurneys preferred style of painting. The book summary reads:

Most art instruction books show you how to draw or paint something you can see: a still life, a landscape,
or a portrait. But what if you want to make a realistic picture of something that you can only imagine? This
book shows the advanced or intermediate artist the time-tested methods used by artists since the
Renaissance to bring your dreams into reality.

Gurneys second book, Color & Light, focuses much more on applying lighting within each picture in way
that can create the illusion of reality within any painting, whether it is based on something real or not. He claims
that this book examines the realist painters most fundamental tools: color and light. The book bridges the gap
between abstract theory and practical knowledge, providing useful information about sources of light, color
relationships, pigments, backyard optics, visual perception, surfaces and effects, and atmospheric conditions
(Color & Light, book summary).
Not only are these two books good instructional resources for the realistic artist, they embody James
Gurneys style as a painter. From the book titles and summaries alone we can infer how well Gurney understands
the concepts behind creating a realistic painting. From his work with National Geographic, his series Dinotopia,
and more recently his instructional books, Gurney has exemplified a unique taste for imagination and realism,
which is apparently evident in all of his work.

PERSONAL REFLECTION
I was very excited to research James Gurney and his style of artwork because I could relate to so much of
him and his life through his art. When I was a young kid, I was always playing with toy dinosaurs, reading how-todraw books about dinosaurs, and eventually making my own dinosaur books, complete with illustrations! As I was
researching this, I saw how Gurney was able to take these ideas and this part of my imagination from my past and
make it real for me.
Not only do I feel like we share a similar interest in dinosaurs and archaeology, we also share a similar
approach to how we draw. I have always striven to create realistic looking drawings and pictures based off of
fantasy like creatures, places, or things I imagine in my head. In my experience I have just jumped into my drawings
with little preparation, and the outcome is lacking in accuracy to reality. From my observations of Gurneys work, I
have learned that without the knowledge of proportions and body structures we can gain from the realistic things
already around us, we wont be able to create something as believable.
I found it absolutely fascinating to observe Gurneys progressive ideas in his Dinotopia series. To be
specific, in his first book A Land Apart From Time, he shows a historical human civilization working side by side
with dinosaurs in a productive manner for both parties. In his second book The World Beneath, things have
progressed a little. Now he shows different human cultures coming together from what looks like different time
periods. We see this in his picture Bonnaba Meeting where a woman in a more tribal dresses is confronting a
th

man in a suit that looks like its from the 20 century. By his third installment First Flight, Gurney has projected
this same idea of altered and blended culture further in to the far-out future. He depicts, still in a very realistic
fashion, robotic dinosaurs, hover cars, and large cities that makes me think: how much more would our culture and
life have been affected if we had been associated closely with dinosaurs at some point in our life? His artistic style
is not only visually appealing, it helps me contemplate the world around me.