Audubon’s original bird paintings reveal an intimate record of the American woodsman’s remarkable achievement…
Ever since his death in 1851, John James Audubon, the self-styled “American Woodsman”, has been given the image of a folk hero whose stature seems to grow with time. His name is a household world, a name adopted by Greens and conservationists as a rallying cry for their causes, and commonly misused by a wide public as a generic label for a miscellaneous variety of color prints of birds.
—Pileated Woodpecker—click image for source…
Audubon has also been acclaimed as one of the greatest nature artists in history, a judgement first made when he showed his work abroad in 1826 and one that has been repeated over the years down to our own time. Although great advances have been made in ornithological studies during the past century, no single person, before or since, has contributed so much to the art of bird painting as Audubon did. The original paintings he created for the engraved illustrations in his monumental publication The Birds of America not only stand as a great landmark in the field of ornithology but they constitute, as a collection, one of the most precious documents in the annals of American art.
—Great Blue Heron 17 1/2 x 26 $150
Edition of 1,000—click image for source…
There is great range and flexibility in Aububon’s art. He was strictly a representational artist, intent on re-creating a convincing, detailed impression of the natural world as he intimately observed it. He had no fixed style as such. rather, he adapted his techniques, his mediums and his compositions to the requirements of each individual case- to the point, indeed, where different paintings might often be considered as the works of diverse artists.
—John James Audubon (1785–1851), Wild Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo), Havell plate no. 6, 1820. Pastel, watercolor, oil, graphite, and black ink on paper, laid on card. —click image for source…
For any comparable combination of technical virtuosity, sophisticated design, and convincing naturalism in bird painting, we must turn to earlier works by Oriental artists. Of these, it is safe to assume, Audubon knew nothing; but he was keenly aware of the importance of his own accomplishment in producing his large gallery of bird portraits. He did know that no Oriental artist before him had pinted bird life on such an heroic scale, or had recorded such animated, informed likeness of birds in their different habitats. And he felt with growing conviction that no one who came after him would have the same opportunity to make such a report on the birds of America. The primeval haunts in which they flourished so abundantly and so variously were already vanishing in Audubon’s day. ( to be continued)…
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