audubon: birds, birds and more birds

A nuber of the paintings carried detailed instructions for Robert Havell Jr.,the English engraver, to guide him and his colorists in the preparation of the copies, notations which were naturally suppressed in the making of the engraved plates. Occasionally the asides were self-critical, as when he inscribed on one painting: “The outer primary of the male bird is pure white, it is dirty in the drawing because the White colour I used happened to be bad.” In the end, John James Audubon was his own most tireless critic; the precise coloration, the sensitive characterizations, and the subtle compositions he achieved in his finished paintings were the result of repeated trials, frequent correction, and at times, ingenious contrivance.

---Pictured (right) is John J Audubon's illustration of the Peregrine Falcon, today commonly referred to as the Peregrine Falcon. This hand-colored lithograph is Plate #20 from the Octavo Edition of Birds of America - created from 1840 to 1844. Audubon's Field Notes that Accompanied This Illustration: "The French and Spaniards of Louisiana have designated all the species of the genus Falco by the name of "Mangeurs de Poulets;" and the farmers in other portions of the Union have bestowed upon them, according to their size, the appellations of "Hen Hawk," "Chicken Hawk," "Pigeon Hawk," &c. This mode of naming these rapacious birds is doubtless natural enough, but it displays little knowledge of the characteristic manners of the species. No bird can better illustrate the frequent inaccuracy of the names bestowed by ignorant persons than the present, of which, on referring to the plate, you will see a pair enjoying themselves over a brace of ducks of different species.---click image for source...

—Pictured  is John J Audubon’s illustration of the Peregrine Falcon, today commonly referred to as the Peregrine Falcon.
This hand-colored lithograph is Plate #20 from the Octavo Edition of Birds of America – created from 1840 to 1844.
Audubon’s Field Notes that Accompanied This Illustration:
“The French and Spaniards of Louisiana have designated all the species of the genus Falco by the name of “Mangeurs de Poulets;” and the farmers in other portions of the Union have bestowed upon them, according to their size, the appellations of “Hen Hawk,” “Chicken Hawk,” “Pigeon Hawk,” &c. This mode of naming these rapacious birds is doubtless natural enough, but it displays little knowledge of the characteristic manners of the species. No bird can better illustrate the frequent inaccuracy of the names bestowed by ignorant persons than the present, of which, on referring to the plate, you will see a pair enjoying themselves over a brace of ducks of different species.—click image for source…

For example, the female peregrine falcon at the right, above, done largely in pastel, was cut out of an earlier drawing and pasted onto paper; the water-color painting of a male bird and a couple of slaughtered ducks was then added. Audubon worked almost incessantly for fourteen days before completing his rendering of the golden eagle to his satisfaction.

---Though many may not think of him immediately as a great American artist, John James Audubon’s work embodies the curiosity and adventurous spirit that shaped the development of the United States. As Dean Amadon points out in his introduction to a 1967 edition of Audubon’s “The Birds of America”: “John James Audubon is one of those fortunate individuals whose fame, more than a century after his death, is increasing”.[i] Born as an illegitimate child of a chambermaid and a lieutenant in the French Navy, John James Audubon, born “Jean Rabine”, had rather humble beginnings. He was born on a sugar plantation in what is now Haiti in 1985, where he resided only until about the age of four, when he moved to France with his father to be raised by his stepmother (name changed to Jean-Jacques Fougère Audubon[ii]). Even as a child Jean had a particular interest in birds and ”claimed that his childhood drawings were almost exclusively of birds”[iii]. Jean had no desire to serve in the Navy (as his father hoped he would) and so he was sent (at age 18, in 1803) to a family property in Philadelphia in an effort to avoid getting drafted under Napoleon (it is at this point that he anglicized his name to John James Audubon---click image for source...

—Though many may not think of him immediately as a great American artist, John James Audubon’s work embodies the curiosity and adventurous spirit that shaped the development of the United States. As Dean Amadon points out in his introduction to a 1967 edition of Audubon’s “The Birds of America”: “John James Audubon is one of those fortunate individuals whose fame, more than a century after his death, is increasing”.
Born as an illegitimate child of a chambermaid and a lieutenant in the French Navy, John James Audubon, born “Jean Rabine”, had rather humble beginnings. He was born on a sugar plantation in what is now Haiti in 1785, where he resided only until about the age of four, when he moved to France with his father to be raised by his stepmother (name changed to Jean-Jacques Fougère Audubon. Even as a child Jean had a particular interest in birds and ”claimed that his childhood drawings were almost exclusively of birds”. Jean had no desire to serve in the Navy (as his father hoped he would) and so he was sent (at age 18, in 1803) to a family property in Philadelphia in an effort to avoid getting drafted under Napoleon (it is at this point that he anglicized his name to John James Audubon—click image for source…

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