The Birds of America (01:37)
A few years ago, a movie called "American Animals" opened people's eyes, it turned out that there are really "book thieves" in the world, and stealing books can make 4 college students eat 7 years in prison each. The film is based on the real-life event "The Transsey Book Theft" that occurred in 2004, and one of the precious books they stole was John Audubon's Birds of America. In the movie, "Birds of America" is so big and heavy that it almost needs to be carried by four people together, and later because it is too heavy, the thieves simply abandoned it in the corridor. It was the same edition of Birds of America that fetched around £7.32 million at an auction in London in 2010, making it "the most expensive book in the world".
The book Birds of America, which appeared in the movie Animals of America
Birds of America consists of four volumes containing 435 hand-painted prints depicting more than 1,000 birds, the same size as real birds. There are only 119 surviving copies of the book worldwide, 108 of which are in the collections of museums, libraries and universities. The Mitchell Library in Scotland happens to have one. Fortunately, the National Museum of Scotland is on display of this priceless book, as well as 46 hand-painted prints of the unbound Birds of America. Most people can only appreciate the electronic version of the book, and the opportunity to see the true appearance of the book and the original prints, for me who loves books and illustrations, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and I naturally will not miss it. The whole exhibition made me feel excited, and all my feelings could probably be expressed in one sentence: a great book.
Exhibition site
Birds of America on display at the exhibition
Around 1820, the American naturalist John James Audubon announced his ambition: to paint all the birds in North America. From 1827 to 1838, Audubon painted for 11 consecutive years, and his work was finally compiled into Birds of America. The book is huge, more than a meter tall. Even so, the painter had to present some of the larger birds in a slightly distorted pose so that they could be drawn intact on paper.
Cover of Birds of America
Before Audubon, many people also painted birds, but most of those works looked stiff or unnatural, and Audubon painted birds at the same time as painting natural scenes, such as letting them be with plants, staying in nests or hunting, etc., so his paintings look vivid and realistic, with a sense of presence. Audubon also highlights the adverse human impact on the natural environment in his book, pointing out how forests are gradually disappearing and how modern agriculture he has witnessed leads to the extinction of species.
Audubon's prints (details)
After the publication of Birds of America, Audubon won the world's attention. For a long time, Audubon was hailed as an American adventurer and naturalist, and his craftsmanship was revered, and his portrait was hung in the White House.
Audubon himself, however, was a controversial figure. Many of his practices have been criticized by naturalists, for example, in addition to being a painter, he is also a hunter and taxidermist, and he shoots almost every bird he paints. A large portion of his income came from the sale of animal skins, and of course it is undeniable that this practice funded the publication of Birds of America to some extent. In addition to this, Audubon's father was a slave owner, and Audubon profited from slavery all his life and defied the abolitionist movement. He even stole skulls from graves around the world to advance research into racial and biological theories. According to the University of Aberdeen in November 2021, they are looking for ways to return the nine skulls stolen by Audubon in the museum's collection.
Portrait of Audubon by the American painter George Healy
Moreover, although Audubon identified more than 20 new birds and named them, his identification was often wrong, for example, the "Washington bird" he found is now considered to be completely fabricated by him.
What is less well known is that the world-famous American-themed book was published in Britain. Because at that time, Audubon was regarded as a man without any scientific training in the United States, he was ostracized by the scientific community, his paintings were considered distorted, no publisher was willing to publish his works, and British publishers were fascinated by the customs and customs of the United States. In the summer of 1826, Audubon came to England with more than 200 of his paintings of birds and eventually received an olive branch in Edinburgh. The first 10 prints in Birds of America were by Edinburgh publisher and engraver William Holme Lizares, only later, because of The Lissales' colorist strike, Audubon had to move to a London publisher to continue publishing his work. But the fate of Audubon and Edinburgh is unquestionable, between 1829 and 1839, Audubon went to Edinburgh five times, and in total, he stayed in Edinburgh for about 3 years.
I have lived in Edinburgh for more than 10 years, and while being impressed by the book "Birds of America" itself, Audubon's relationship with Edinburgh made me love his paintings even more. I imagine the frustrated Audubon in The United States coming to England by boat, longing to meet walter Scott, the great writer of Scotland, hoping to be introduced by him; he presents his paintings to different publishers, and he introduces himself with great enthusiasm, when in fact he, like all rookie authors, does not know whether he will meet Bó Lè or not... But in any case, he probably couldn't imagine that in about 200 years, his American Birds would become the book of the century.
(Cui Ying: Journalist, documentary filmmaker, columnist, PhD from the University of Edinburgh, loves walking and literature, likes to collect old illustration books from all over the world, and has published books such as "British Illustrators" and "British Illustration Book Collection". ）