Science / Medicine : A Pole Apart : Artist Shows Antarctica’s True Colors

One midnight I was on the deck of the ship. It was light enough to paint by. The sea was a mint green, the sky an apricot orange, and the icebergs were a blue violet! Of course the photographs picked up none of this . . . . I have never seen a place more spectacular. --William Stout

Pasadena artist William Stout was so profoundly affected by his first visit to Antarctica in 1989 that he felt compelled to introduce people to its harsh and fragile beauty. He also came away convinced that the icy southern continent should be protected as a world park.

Working from sketches and photographs he made while there, Stout devoted the next two years to creating a series of paintings depicting the land and wildlife of the area from prehistoric times to the present.

Stout’s vision became “Dinosaurs, Penguins and Whales--The Wildlife of Antarctica,” an exhibit of 45 paintings now in the main foyer at the Museum of Natural History of Los Angeles County in Exposition Park. He is one of only a few living artists whose works have been exhibited at the museum.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Stout, 41, said of his trip to the Antarctic. “I wasn’t prepared” for the “astounding colors” observed there, although he had seen photographs of the area.

“Photographs only recorded a small percentage of the colors that were actually there,” Stout said. He recalled taking pictures of “sea-smoothed rocks” that looked like “pastel Easter eggs,” only to have the photos turn out a “dull gray.”

Stout, a member of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, went to great lengths to ensure scientific detail. He consulted a core group of about twenty international scientists, including members of the Byrd Polar Research Center for Paleobotany in Ohio, for details of his paintings of prehistoric Antarctica.

In his research, for example, he found that the modern Madagascar hissing cockroach resembles prehistoric Antarctic cockroaches. Borrowing some from a movie studio “bug wrangler” friend, he used the four-inch roaches as models for his smaller, prehistoric subjects. A detailed representation of the cockroach can be seen in the painting “Ericicolacerta and Cockroach.”

Although some of the paintings of present-day Antarctica appear imaginary, all the elements are actual representations of what he saw while there, according to Stout. The colors are vibrant--various hues of blues, greens and pastel tones.

One painting shows a Macaroni penguin standing in front of a rusting boiler, called a “digester,” used in the past by sealers to crush and extract the oil from elephant seals. When the seal population was decimated, the sealers turned to penguins, at one point eliminating an entire colony of king penguins on the island, according to Stout.

Stout also wanted to inform people about the Antarctic Treaty, which became effective in 1961 and gives unique status to Antarctica. Treaty nations agreed to put on hold all territorial claims, mining, drilling, military and nuclear testing activity to preserve the continent for scientific research and peaceful international cooperation.

An environmental protocol to the treaty will be negotiated at a meeting of member nations in Spain this month. At issue are questions of mineral exploitation, marine pollution and environmental protection.

Several competing proposals have been put forward, with some members advocating a permanent ban on mining and others backing a moratorium only. Mining has been one of the most contentious areas of discussion, according to Joan Bondareff, an attorney with the House Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries.

The “continent will be up for grabs” with “tragic” results if treaty members fail to protect it, Stout maintains.

In November, President Bush signed legislation banning all U.S. mining in the area “until a new international minerals agreement has been approved,” according to a White House statement released at the time.

Proponents of a world park, such as the Washington, D.C.-based Antarctica Project, assert that establishing Antarctica as a world nature preserve would provide permanent protection for the continent, tighter environmental controls and stricter enforcement of the agreements.

Stout views his exhibit as an appeal to save the Antarctic from development and an “investment in (his) children’s and grandchildren’s futures.”