Tuesday, July 03, 2007
The Wolpertinger Strikes!
Some of you may be wondering why I am devoting so much time to the German Museum of Hunting and Fishing. After all, it's a relatively small museum so far as these things go, meriting not even a single mention in my city tour guide. And from the broader perspective of the aspiring museologist, for the most part its collections of specimens are interesting, but by no means unique in either a qualitative or a quantitative sense.
Let's face it, you can see glass cases filled with specimens like the stuffed birds shown here at almost any nature center.
A full-fledged natural history museum will go even further, moving beyond cases to create immersive displays or dioramas that showcase animals in natural looking environments. The German Museum of Hunting and Fishing attempted to do this, though as the picture below shows, the landscapes were not especially realistic.
But, still they put in the effort, which must count for something. Remember that this is a museum dedicated to the preservation of animals only in so far as it furthers the sports of hunting or fishing. Displays on protecting wetlands could be found just steps away from displays of various hunting lances, swords, and snares. There was, in short, a strange ambiguity to the whole affair, the museum's emphasis on conveying information and an appreciation of Germany's natural resources and simultaneous attempts to justify the nobility of the hunter's art kept me wandering its halls far longer than I would have expected.
But nothing, and I mean NOTHING, could have prepared me for the display in the back of the museum's second floor. Nestled between two dioramas comparable in style to the one with the boars pictured above was a much more intricate display filled with plants, soil, etc. This attention to detail made it compare favorably to those found at higher end natural history displays. I assumed as I gazed through the glass and let these first impressions settle in that such a fine display case must serve as the home to the museum's most rare and wonderful specimens.
In a way I was right...although, I'm not sure if either I, or the museum, ought to be proud. When I looked through the glass, this was what I saw:
Imagine strolling past case after case of authentic animal specimens, attempting to compare this museum's exhibits with those elsewhere, and then suddenly seeing this cuddly looking bird-rabbit hybrid nestled between two actual exhibits. If you were anything like me, you would have looked at the display's labels for a bit of an explanation. Unfortunately, the label was formatted in the same way as all the other specimens, obfuscating the fact that museum had verged from presenting biological specimens to cryptozoological ones like this carnivorous one-fanged winged squirrel.
It turns out that both of these are specimens of the Wolpertinger (Crisensus Bavaricus), which from what I can gather is the Old World equivalent of the American jackalope. Its pedigree can be traced to the 18th century writings of the Brothers Grimm which hinted at the existence of this majestic, and terrifying, animal. Though later authors have attempted to explain away the numerous sightings of the Wolpertinger as the results of rabbits infected with a disease that makes them grow tumors from their head, which might be mistaken for horns, the museum's curators have their own explanation for where these creatures come from...and they put it on display for everyone to see.
Yes. You figured it out. This entire post has just been an excuse for the picture above. All those attempts to point out the fundamental contradictions in the museum's display philosophy, all those comparisons to other similar institutions, they are all swept away by this powerful image. An image of a rabbit engaged in carnal relations with a chicken!
Now there be a few prudish sorts who will claim that this image is obscene, a crime against nature, or at the very least worthy of some sort of disclaimer. But this picture was taken at a public museum, where people of all ages were being invited to visit. So I feel no need to apologize for posting the image, any more than the curators who set up the display in the first place.
Can a museum that prides itself on its displays of actual artifacts, be they the weapons used by hunters or the creatures they caught and preserved for posterity, also include the fantastic or the absurd? The curators of the German Museum of Hunting and Fishing think so and they could, if asked, easily cite numerous examples supporting their claims on both sides of the Atlantic. I'm not sure I agree entirely, but the mere presence of the Wolpertinger in this collection only serves to boost and the audacity of its display stuck out from all of the other, more sedate tourist destinations that I have visited thus far in Munich. And for that reason I think I will always look back fondly on both the museum and its noble Black Forest denizen...no matter how weird they both may be.
Some of you may be wondering why I am devoting so much time to the German Museum of Hunting and Fishing. After all, it's a relatively small museum so far as these things go, meriting not even a single mention in my city tour guide. And from the broader perspective of the aspiring museologist, for the most part its collections of specimens are interesting, but by no means unique in either a qualitative or a quantitative sense.
Let's face it, you can see glass cases filled with specimens like the stuffed birds shown here at almost any nature center.
A full-fledged natural history museum will go even further, moving beyond cases to create immersive displays or dioramas that showcase animals in natural looking environments. The German Museum of Hunting and Fishing attempted to do this, though as the picture below shows, the landscapes were not especially realistic.
But, still they put in the effort, which must count for something. Remember that this is a museum dedicated to the preservation of animals only in so far as it furthers the sports of hunting or fishing. Displays on protecting wetlands could be found just steps away from displays of various hunting lances, swords, and snares. There was, in short, a strange ambiguity to the whole affair, the museum's emphasis on conveying information and an appreciation of Germany's natural resources and simultaneous attempts to justify the nobility of the hunter's art kept me wandering its halls far longer than I would have expected.
But nothing, and I mean NOTHING, could have prepared me for the display in the back of the museum's second floor. Nestled between two dioramas comparable in style to the one with the boars pictured above was a much more intricate display filled with plants, soil, etc. This attention to detail made it compare favorably to those found at higher end natural history displays. I assumed as I gazed through the glass and let these first impressions settle in that such a fine display case must serve as the home to the museum's most rare and wonderful specimens.
In a way I was right...although, I'm not sure if either I, or the museum, ought to be proud. When I looked through the glass, this was what I saw:
Imagine strolling past case after case of authentic animal specimens, attempting to compare this museum's exhibits with those elsewhere, and then suddenly seeing this cuddly looking bird-rabbit hybrid nestled between two actual exhibits. If you were anything like me, you would have looked at the display's labels for a bit of an explanation. Unfortunately, the label was formatted in the same way as all the other specimens, obfuscating the fact that museum had verged from presenting biological specimens to cryptozoological ones like this carnivorous one-fanged winged squirrel.
It turns out that both of these are specimens of the Wolpertinger (Crisensus Bavaricus), which from what I can gather is the Old World equivalent of the American jackalope. Its pedigree can be traced to the 18th century writings of the Brothers Grimm which hinted at the existence of this majestic, and terrifying, animal. Though later authors have attempted to explain away the numerous sightings of the Wolpertinger as the results of rabbits infected with a disease that makes them grow tumors from their head, which might be mistaken for horns, the museum's curators have their own explanation for where these creatures come from...and they put it on display for everyone to see.
Yes. You figured it out. This entire post has just been an excuse for the picture above. All those attempts to point out the fundamental contradictions in the museum's display philosophy, all those comparisons to other similar institutions, they are all swept away by this powerful image. An image of a rabbit engaged in carnal relations with a chicken!
Now there be a few prudish sorts who will claim that this image is obscene, a crime against nature, or at the very least worthy of some sort of disclaimer. But this picture was taken at a public museum, where people of all ages were being invited to visit. So I feel no need to apologize for posting the image, any more than the curators who set up the display in the first place.
Can a museum that prides itself on its displays of actual artifacts, be they the weapons used by hunters or the creatures they caught and preserved for posterity, also include the fantastic or the absurd? The curators of the German Museum of Hunting and Fishing think so and they could, if asked, easily cite numerous examples supporting their claims on both sides of the Atlantic. I'm not sure I agree entirely, but the mere presence of the Wolpertinger in this collection only serves to boost and the audacity of its display stuck out from all of the other, more sedate tourist destinations that I have visited thus far in Munich. And for that reason I think I will always look back fondly on both the museum and its noble Black Forest denizen...no matter how weird they both may be.
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