Ebook170 pages2 hours
The Art of the Bird: The History of Ornithological Art through Forty Artists
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
3/5
()
About this ebook
The human history of depicting birds dates to as many as 40,000 years ago, when Paleolithic artists took to cave walls to capture winged and other beasts. But the art form has reached its peak in the last four hundred years. In The Art of the Bird, devout birder and ornithologist Roger J. Lederer celebrates this heyday of avian illustration in forty artists’ profiles, beginning with the work of Flemish painter Frans Snyders in the early 1600s and continuing through to contemporary artists like Elizabeth Butterworth, famed for her portraits of macaws. Stretching its wings across time, taxa, geography, and artistic style—from the celebrated realism of American conservation icon John James Audubon, to Elizabeth Gould’s nineteenth-century renderings of museum specimens from the Himalayas, to Swedish artist and ornithologist Lars Jonsson’s ethereal watercolors—this book is feathered with art and artists as diverse and beautiful as their subjects. A soaring exploration of our fascination with the avian form, The Art of the Bird is a testament to the ways in which the intense observation inherent in both art and science reveals the mysteries of the natural world.
Related to The Art of the Bird
Related ebooks
Oceanic Birds of the World: A Photo Guide Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Hidden Horticulturists: The Untold Story of the Men Who Shaped Britain's Gardens Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNevada Mountains: Landforms, Trees, and Vegetation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Field Guide to the Common Bees of California: Including Bees of the Western United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of Migration: Birds, Insects, and the Changing Seasons in Chicagoland Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAnimal Skulls: A Guide to North American Species Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Dragonflight: In Search of Britain's Dragonflies and Damselflies Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5More Than Birds: Adventurous Lives of North American Naturalists Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Artist's Field Guide to Yellowstone: A Natural History by Greater Yellowstone's Artists and Writers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAudubon's Birds Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Birding the Hudson Valley Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBirdmania: A Remarkable Passion for Birds Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGulls Simplified: A Comparative Approach to Identification Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKangaroo: Portrait of an Extraordinary Marsupial Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Nature of Yosemite: A Visual Journey Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Bird Study Book Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRaptors of New Mexico Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Rare, Vanishing and Lost British Birds: Compiled from Notes by W. H. Hudson Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBiology of Bats Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Birds and Us: A 12,000-Year History from Cave Art to Conservation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Oregon Surfing: North Coast Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBirds of New York: Over 100 Plates Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe New York Wildlife Encyclopedia: An Illustrated Guide to Birds, Fish, Mammals, Reptiles, and Amphibians Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBirds of Prey of the West: A Field Guide Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Field Guide to Birds of the Northern California Coast Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A Californian's Guide to the Birds Among Us Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThrough a Naturalist's Eyes: Exploring the Nature of New England Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Turtle Envy: How Facing the Fear of Diving Added New Adventures in Life and New Depths in Love: Own Your Path, #2 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLife on Display: Revolutionizing U.S. Museums of Science and Natural History in the Twentieth Century Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOwls of the United States and Canada: A Complete Guide to Their Biology and Behavior Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Nature For You
Why Fish Don't Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Forager's Harvest: A Guide to Identifying, Harvesting, and Preparing Edible Wild Plants Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Silent Spring Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5SAS Survival Handbook, Third Edition: The Ultimate Guide to Surviving Anywhere Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5H Is for Hawk Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Under the Henfluence: Inside the World of Backyard Chickens and the People Who Love Them Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBeyond Coffee: A Sustainable Guide to Nootropics, Adaptogens, and Mushrooms Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lucky Dog Lessons: From Renowned Expert Dog Trainer and Host of Lucky Dog: Reunions Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Encyclopedia of 5,000 Spells Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The God Delusion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5My Family and Other Animals Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fantastic Fungi: How Mushrooms Can Heal, Shift Consciousness, and Save the Planet Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Floriography: An Illustrated Guide to the Victorian Language of Flowers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Foraging for Survival: Edible Wild Plants of North America Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEdible Wild Plants Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Shelter: A Love Letter to Trees Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Summary of Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Solace of Open Spaces: Essays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Complete Language of Flowers: A Definitive and Illustrated History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Corfu Trilogy: My Family and Other Animals; Birds, Beasts and Relatives; and The Garden of the Gods Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5On Trails: An Exploration Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hunt for the Skinwalker: Science Confronts the Unexplained at a Remote Ranch in Utah Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Field Guide to Dumb Birds of North America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Forager's Handbook: A Seasonal Guide to Harvesting Wild, Edible & Medicinal Plants Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related categories
Reviews for The Art of the Bird
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
3/5
2 ratings1 review
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A mixed bag - closer to 2 stars for the text, but the wealth of color illustrations of some truly splendid paintings pulls it up a star.
The author, Roger Lederer, an ornithologist by training, has collected a rich array of bird illustrations and bird art, ranging from old woodcuts to modern paintings. I often deplore the lack of good images found in art books these days, but while occasionally uneven in quality, this is overall a very handsome book to page through. Lederer follows a roughly chronological order, placing the artists and their work in the context of the times and the intent of the work: documentary, scientific illustration, field guides, and purely aesthetic. Lederer seems to have selected primarily works in which you would be able to identify the species, depicted realistically (if not always entirely accurately), so folk art or more "symbolic" images are not here, and all the artists are European or American (there are a couple of women). You will have to get past several quite horrible tables full of dead, gutted animals and a nasty hunting scene by Rubens (I never did like Rubens...). But Fabritius's transcendent goldfinch gets a whole page to himself, there are some farmyards of histrionic poultry, and LOTS of parrots and peacocks, by artists famous (Audubon) and unfamous. My favorite part was discovering that the English poet Edward Lear ("There once was a man with a beard..." and The Owl and the Pussycat) was an absolutely brilliant painter of birds as a young man. His red and yellow macaw on p. 105 is nothing short of spectacular; his snowy owls are dramatically better than Audubon's. (I'm ordering a reproduction of his barn owl portrait for my own wall... wish I could afford even a plate from the original book it appeared in!) The book closes with a tribute to David Sibley, the current star of bird field guide illustrations - what a pleasure to see his paintings closer to their actual size as painted, and appreciate the delicate and sure-handed subtleties we can't see in the books we carry in our backpacks.
The editing of the text is odd, and I would have expected better from the U of Chicago Press. Passages of description are repeated verbatim in both illustration captions and the text. There are descriptions in the text of paintings not illustrated, and illustrations that are not discussed in the text. One discussion of a Malcom Cradock painting refers explicitly to birds that don't appear in the illustration... is the image a detail? I am still puzzling over the charming little painting of a blue-faced malkoha: Lederer remarks we can see it must have been a captive bird because of the damage to the tail feathers. At first glance, yes, the edges of the feathers look tattered, but a closer look shows the artist has sketched the fine edges that actually show that the feathers are edged in white - not damage, just white patches, but hard to see against the white background of the image. Did he really just miss that? As I Googled up some more information about various artists and birds, I also discovered passages that suggest Lederer did much the same in compiling his text - and the bibliography includes a fair number of citations to Wikipedia.
This is an attractive, enjoyable collection of lovely pictures and some interesting stories about birds and bird artists in Europe and American in the last four centuries or so. The blend of ornithological and art historical scholarship is not so successful.
Book preview
The Art of the Bird - Roger J. Lederer
Enjoying the preview?
Page 1 of 1