John James Audubon
John James Audubon was a French American ornithological illustrator who lived from 1785 to 1851. He is arguably the most well-known American ornithological illustrator to date. Born Jean Rabin, his early life was marked with unrest.
Audubon was born in Haiti as an illegitimate son to his father. His mother died when he was just several months old. During the slave rebellions of the late eighteenth century, the Audubon family moved to France. After some time in France, the Napoleonic Wars of the early 19th century broke out in France. For his safety, his father sent him to the United States. During his earliest years in America, Audubon became a self-proclaimed naturalist, spending most of his time fishing, drawing, learning taxidermy, creating his own “nature museum”, and spending a majority of his time outside in nature learning the nesting habits of birds. From quite early on, he set out to illustrate birds in the most natural manner yet.
In 1820, Audubon started what he would spend his lifetime creating, The Birds of America. Audubon would leave his family at home for months to years at a time, though he loved them immensely, in an effort to make money and progress his work. His work led him to discover 25 brand new species. It took 14 years to complete. Though at first not respected in the American art world due to his rough, rugged nature and abrupt personality, those traits immediately endeared him to the British art world who saw John James Audubon as a real-life American woodsman in the same vein as Davy Crockett.
Audubon’s work revolutionized naturalist illustration the world over for his detailed, true to life representations of birds, that were often engaged in primal survivalist activities, rather than the stiff poses of the traditional naturalist perspectives. His technique involved hunting the bird, pinning the bird to a board in a life-like position (he studied their movements for hours beforehand), then quickly sketching in what he was to paint before rigor mortis set in.
His paintings were life-size drawings of the birds. Afterwards, he would eat the bird and record the information of its taste and texture. The behavioral patterns of the birds, their markings, a description of their eggs, where they are found, as well as a description of their taste accompanies each plate. Audubon also gives some information regarding the particular foliage the birds are drawn with.
John James Audubon died in 1851 at 65 years of age from the Alzheimer’s disease while he was working on the second volume of Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America; a text on North American mammals.
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