Or in the case of some illustrations, The Stampede. These pictures often put together a diversity of dinosaurs across time and space and seek to emphasize the majesty, and fearsomeness of the dinosauria in "comin' at ya" aesthetic. These are artistic rather than realistic groupings.

The creatures depicted are carefully arrayed around the central image of the circular Edaphosaurus. The arc of the Pteranodon is echoed in the Mammoth's tusks; the Triceratops balances the Uintatherium; the Allosaurus with the Smilodon and the rise of the Dunkleosteus with the fall of the ancient fish. Not strictly dinosaurian but very nice... The Life on Earth poster from Ancient Life Publishing.

Family portraits

Everyone say "Chasmosaurus!". The line between these and the above can be a bit thin at times though the subjects often appear stationary and fanned out in an arc arrangement.

This beautifully rococo picture maximizes the potential of each animal's form and color within the brief of producing a image of contrast, balance and complementary color palate. Dinosaurs by Melissa Frankford from Diamondback Trading Cards.

Incredibly dense fan art titled Dinosaur Diversity by Elliot Merton III. Pterosaurs provide balance filling the spaces that could not be adequately filled by small Mesozoic birds.

More "popular" images, Saurischia and Ornithischia collages by an unknown artist. The garish, primary colors suggest these images were intended primarily for children. They deserve much better. Not only are the colors for the most part ridiculous but the individual dinosaurs are copied from a variety of sources spread widely over time. Of particular note is a dupe of Zdenek Burian's Tarbosaurus in the top panel. Once again the Pachycephalosaurus is far too big.

Because of their diversity and ornamentation some dinosaur taxa tend to be "portraited" more often than others. Family portraits of groups like hadrosaurs and ceratopsians are particularly common:

A group of ceratopsian dinosaurs in the style of John Sibbick, from left to right: Psittacosaurus, Triceratops, Styracosaurus (with a very strange horn arrangement), Torosaurus, Pentaceratops and Protoceratops. (De Agostini/NHMPL)

A similar and beautifully rendered panoply of ceratopsians by the redoubtable Mark Hallett. Just in case the labels are illegible they are, from left to right: Styracosaurus, Leptoceratops, Triceratops, Pachyrhinosaurus, Protoceratops and Pentaceratops.

A Diversity of Ceratopsids by Jaime A. Headden. Profiles offer nice variety too.

The artists of these two pictures are unknown though it is possible one was used as reference for the other. Compare the Styracosaurus in each and the Chasmosaurus in the left picture with the Pentaceratops in the right. Coincidence? Perhaps...

A panoply of the dinosauria by Japanese artist Sugaya Naka. Its intention is to represent each of the major dinosaur groups. Probably intended for children, the child strikes a defiant pose while providing scale. As in John Sibbick's The March of Prehistory below, the horned dinosaur appears to have been skinned.

Very similar to the above, Reptiles of the Jurassic by Robert Nicholls differs in that it limits itself to the Jurassic Period. Its title is somewhat misleading however because although small pterosaurs and a flock of ancient birds are present the grouping is pretty much limited to dinosaurs, nicely rendered though they are. No ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, mosasaurs or the myriad other Jurassic reptiles get a look in. Perhaps the artist felt "reptiles" sounded more evocative and artistic than "dinosaurs".

This parade, by the talented Keini Terakoshi, could almost be titled "Classic dinosaurs" for it pictures those dinosaurs best known to the public: (R - L:) Velociraptor (look closely beneath the head of the trike), Triceratops, Diplodocus, Brachiosaurus, Pteranodon (yes, a pterosaur, not a dinosaur), Tyrannosaurus and Stegosaurus.

A parade of brachiosaurs by freelance paleoartist Nima: Volkheimeria, Lapparentosaurus, Daanosaurus, Bothriospondylus, Lusotitan, Brachiosaurus, "The Archbishop" (yet to be officially named), Pelorosaurus, Pleurocoelus, Cedarosaurus, Sonorasaurus, Sauroposeidon, Breviparopus and Europasaurus. These sauropods are roughly in order from most primitive to most advanced except for little Europasaurus; the artist only had enough room for him at the end, even though he lived before the ones just behind him. Above these hovers the biggest known T. rex (the "B. rex" specimen) for size comparison and bottom right is a human figure for scale. Finally there are scaled footprints of Breviparopus and Pleurocoelus at the base as well as height scale at the right border.

A parade panoply of new Australian sauropods by Zach Armstrong. From left to right: Australovenator, Diamantinasaurus, an unpublished brachiosaur, (and behind it) Austrosaurus sp. (dubbed "Elliot"), a speculative titanosauriforme, Wintonotitan, and finally two non-sauropods, Muttaburrasaurus and at far left a theropod. In the background is a small undescribed ankylosaur and here based on Minmi.

As we have seen ceratopsians and hadrosaurs are most often portraited because they offer interesting and varied head views. Surprisingly, despite a relative lack of variety sauropods are most often "paraded". Perhaps it's the swan-like necks that makes them appealing subjects. Here however is a relative rarity, a theropod parade. This one of some Lower Cretaceous theropods from England's Wealden formation is by well-known paleoblogger Darren Naish. Featured are Baryonyx, allosauroid Neovenator, and dromaeosaurid Utahraptor. The presence of a giant dromaeosaurid like Utahraptor is inferred from the recovery of teeth.

Dino Timeline by Richard Sardina for Atlas Screen Printing. The accuracy of these pictures is secondary to the rather garish colors (pink?) and exoticness of the dinosaurs.

This illustration comes from the side of a Tamiya model box. The models themselves and the illustrations on the box tops are much more modern looking than these outdated restorations.

These restorations are now rather dated however the cascade down the page in three quarter view is quite successful. From an unidentified popular dinosaur book.

Despite its title the Dinosaur Timeline poster is less a timeline than a device for depicting the order in which the animals appeared. It appears that compositional balance may have been more important than accuracy as the Early Cretaceous stegosaur attests.

A pageant of brightly colored thyreophorans in the children's book Dinosaur Parade by Kelly Milner Halls and Rick C. Spears. This picture is purely concerned with being fun and pleasing to the eye, two goals which are admirably achieved.

Landscape/Scene

Much dinosaur paleoart is concerned with snapshotting a moment from the Mesozoic. Here however we are concerned with those works that use landscape as a stage upon which to display groupings of animals based upon one or a combination of relationship, location or time. In the case of popular publishing being a dinosaur is often enough.

A postcard from the 1880. This illustration reveals the then popular view of prehistoric animals; an homogenous group from an unspecific past. Exotic, chaotic and hyper examples of "nature red in tooth and claw".

Cretaceous dinosaurs from China by Neave Parker, circa 1960. Although created for a popular audience Parker's restorations were grounded in the science of the day. Unlike some less scientific works the animals in this scene don't seem to be interacting which suggests the landscape is primarily a device for display.

A herd of primitive carnivorous dinosaurs (Coelophysis, foreground) is enveloped by a sandstorm, while a large carnivorous crocodile-like archosaur (Postosuchus) and several early sauropodomorph dinosaurs lurk in the background. When carefully arranged it is possible to realistically depict a wide variety of fauna in a single scene. [Quercus Publishing]

An illustrated scene of the Grande Prairie region in Alberta, Canada, as it was 73 million years ago - University of Alberta. The purpose of such an illustration is not to create a realistic scene but to give a comprehensive visual summary of the animals, plants and topography of a particular time and place.

Overcoming the problem of overcrowding: Solution 1 - Select a fauna with lots of compatible animals. This drawing by the legendary Gregory S. Paul can legitimately depict three well-known and representative sauropods sharing an environment because they did. Remains of Camarasaurus, Apatosaurus and Diplodocus have all been found in the Late Jurassic Morrison Formation of North America.

Rudolph Zallinger's justifiable famous mural The Age of Reptiles was completed in 1947. The above is only a section of the complete work that covers the entire east wall of the Yale Peabody Museum's Great Hall. The mural depicts the evolution of life on earth over 300 million years, with different sections, separated by the visual device of foreground trees for geologic periods (e.g. the center tree marks the boundary between the Jurassic on the right and the Cretaceous). Interestingly, unlike most similar works by western artists the mural runs from right-to-left with the leftmost animal ("Struthiomimus") being the most recent. Unlike many prehistoric scenes then this work depicts the development of a particular "group" of animals with their associated plants, in appropriate landscapes across time. Naturally then these animals do not interact and are depicted as completely unaware of each other's presence. Once this temporal restraint is highlighted it is difficult to imagine these animals to be any more than static museum exhibits, beautiful as they are.

Karen Carr is a more recent master of the mural. In this work for the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History a Saurophaganax has burst out of the forest into a clearing to attack an Apatosaurus. Apart from making the animals easier to see, the clearing is a favored backdrop for diverse assemblages of dinosaurs because it is supposed they were draw there to graze (but ofcourse not on grass) as modern day animals do. Other animals depicted include Stegosaurus, Camptosaurus, Archaeopteryx and an early possum-like mammal (in the tree at right).