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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.
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T H E A RT O F T H E B I R D The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637 © 2019 Carlton Publishing Group All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations in critical articles and reviews. For more information, contact the University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th St., Chicago, IL 60637. Published 2019 Printed in Dubai 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 12345 ISBN-13: 978-0-226-67505-3 (cloth) ISBN-13: 978-0-226-67519-0 (e-book) DOI: https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226675190.001.0001 First published in Great Britain by André Deutsch, 2019. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Lederer, Roger J., author. Title: The art of the bird : the history of ornithological art through forty artists / Roger J. Lederer. Description: Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 2019. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019016540 | ISBN 9780226675053 (cloth) | ISBN 9780226675190 (e-book) Subjects: LCSH: Birds in art. | Zoological illustration. Classification: LCC N7665 .L325 2019 | DDC 704.9/4328—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019016540 This book was conceived and designed by André Deutsch An imprint of Carlton Publishing Group 20 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JW Telephone: 020 7612 0400 www.andredeutsch.co.uk Editor: Isabel Wilkinson Art Editor: Katie Baxendale Designer: Anna Matos Melgaco Picture Manager: Steve Behan Production: Marion Storz T H E A RT O F T H E B I R D The History of Ornithological Art through Forty Artists Roger J. Lederer The University of Chicago Press CONTENTS I N T RODU C T ION ................................................................. 6 1 . F L E M I SH BA RO Q U E A RT I S T S 1 5 8 0 – 1 7 0 0 . ......... 1 2 From the early seventeenth to early eighteenth centuries, Flemish painters favoured exotic birds as subjects, especially parrots and peacocks. F R A N S SN Y DE R S 1 5 7 9 – 1 6 5 7 ................................................................. 1 8 C A R E L P I E T E R S Z FA B R I T I U S 1 6 2 2 – 5 4 .................................................. 2 2 M E L C H IOR D’ HON DE C OE T E R 1 6 3 6 – 9 5 ................................................ 2 4 2 . E A R LY E N G L I SH A RT I S T S 1 6 2 6 – 1 7 1 6 ................ 2 8 Animal representations were superseded by religious paintings and portraiture, but painters of these genres often worked with animaliers to add creatures to scenes. F R A N C I S BA R L OW 1 6 2 6 – 1 7 0 4 ..............