The Bell Museum of Natural History

This week, we returned to the University of Minnesota to explore a wonderful but often overlooked place, the Bell Museum of Natural History.

The Bell Museum is mainly focused on taxidermy and fantastic dioramas, both centering on the native plants and wildlife of the Minnesota area. The dioramas are fantastic replications of the native plants, animals, and landscape. Habitat dioramas came about in the late 1800s, fueled by concerns that are even more pressing today - ongoing development resulting in the eradication of the plants and animals that are native to the land. Dioramas came about as a way to preserve and display these vanishing habitats. Dioramas are even more important today, as the endless march of development has led to the disappearance of native plants and animals, and has drastically changed the landscape on which they thrived. I learned about animals I never knew had ever existed in Minnesota before! For some of the dioramas, the Bell also had a picture of the very place depicted, as it is today. It was stunning to see how drastically some had changed. Dioramas also display the myriad of environments that were once found in Minnesota, from prairies to forests, from wetlands to rocky bluffs.

There is also an interesting section, titled "Behind the Diorama", that centers on the artists that created the habitats and taxidermied animals. The displays showed all the steps involved in taxidermy and the work that goes into creating lifelike replicas of the animals. The techniques are extensive and involve creating several different frames and molds to get to the one that serves as the base for the animal. The section also included information about the diorama artists that went to the natural locations to paint backdrops and to perfectly replicate them.

On the upper level there was a display of nature paintings, most of which were for sale as a fundraiser. Many different artists, mostly from Minnesota, contributed their work to be displayed. A wealth of scenes from all around Minnesota were found, some paintings of larger habitats, and some that focused on individual birds or animals. The skill of the artists was evident, as many of the painings seemed more lifelike than representational.

Overall, the displays at the Bell Museum were breathtaking in their detail, their extensiveness, and the wonderful artistry that catches the animals and their surroundings in a snapshot of life. The displays are well organized and thorough, including almost every fish, bird, or mammal that was once in Minnesota, and documenting all of the plant and land that surrounded them.
The Bell Museum is often overlooked, but is striking in its relevance today, when animal and habitats are being distroyed and disappearing at an increasing rate. It is imperitive to have such realistic documentation of how the places and creatures were before the destructive hand of humans, to be able to see the glory of nature that was once here.