Last month, the results of the 2019 Audubon Photo Contest were announced, and the Bird Photography Contest sponsored by the Audubon Society in the United States has been held for the tenth time so far, which is not only a major event in the bird photography industry, but also brought countless amazing "bird films" to the audience.
The Audubon Society was founded in 1886 and is named after the famous American naturalist John James Audubon.
Before the rise and popularization of photographic techniques, birds were also the object of interest of many naturalists and painters.
They are light and agile, and they are the most flexible beauty of nature. But this beauty also brings disaster to them.
In the case of birds of paradise, for example, just because of their brilliant feathers, more than tens of thousands of birds of paradise were hunted and killed every year in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which became the decoration on the hats of European noblewomen.
In recent years, although the number of crowned puffins that have sprouted out of the circle and the gorgeous birds of paradise that dance magic courtship dances have attracted public attention on the Internet, our knowledge and understanding of birds is still too small.
A gorgeous bird of paradise dancing courtship
Today, the little painter introduces three of the best ornithologists and book illustrators of the 19th century, who have recorded the beauty of birds in nature with their exquisite hand-painting skills. Many of these species are now endangered.
Treat the beautiful scarce things, look at it from a distance without playing closely, appreciate it without possessing it. In the same way, to protect them is to protect our homes, and to protect them is to protect beauty.
François Levayan
Francois Levaillant (1753–1824)
The father of African ornithology, he is a writer, explorer and naturalist
Lehuayan was born in Paramaribo, then Dutch Guiana (now Suriname), in 1753 and did not return to France with his parents until he was 10 years old.
As a child spent in Suriname, Levayan developed a great interest in the animals of the local rainforest, collecting many bird and insect specimens.
In 1780, as a sergeant major in guns, he accompanied the East India Company fleet to the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa, where he returned a large number of specimens. Later, he described many new bird species based on specimens collected from Africa, and several birds were named after him.
Among the many ornithologists and naturalists, Levyan is considered one of the first to show birds in color plates.
His book Natural History of birds of paradise, Dharma monks, toucans, and woodpeckers, published in 1801-1806, was illustrated by Jacques Barraband, the best Illustrator in France at the time.
Balabander drew the pictures with reference to specimens, meticulously reproducing the details of the specimens and faithfully recording the damage of the specimens.
Alpha Six-Line Windbird · Parotia sefilata
Gorgeous Bird of Paradise· Lophorina superba
Bird of Paradise (male) · Paradisaea apoda
Zodiac Bird of Paradise · Seleucidis melanoleucus
Guyana's Crowned Umbrella Bird · Rupicola rupicola
Black-and-blue long-tailed windbird (male) · Astrapia nigra
Bird of Paradise · Diphyllodes magnificus
Alexander Wilson
Alexander Wilson （1766 - 1813）
The father of American ornithology, poet, naturalist, illustrator
Born in 1766 in Paisley, Scotland, Alexander Wilson was an apprentice in a textile factory as a teenager who became interested in poetry and was jailed for satirizing some of the magnates of the time in poetry.
Wilson was 27 years old when he was released from prison, when he decided to immigrate to the United States and settle down in the United States as a teacher.
He later began his career in ornithology and painting under the influence of the naturalist William Bartram.
Between 1808 and 1814, Wilson published a 9-volume American Ornithology that included 26 species of birds not previously described. Known as the "father of American ornithology" for his contributions to American ornithology, he is also considered the greatest American ornithologist before Audubon.
Unlike Le Wayan, the paintings in Wilson's writings are all drawn by himself, and he integrates his field observations into the drawing of birds, although he does not draw too many environmental features, but the posture of the birds is different, and their posture in the wild is very consistent.
Limited by the cost of printing at the time, Wilson had to paint many different birds on the same layout, most of which had no particularly obvious internal connection, which seemed a little regrettable, but because of its clever use of the space of the plate, it presented a kind of staggered beauty.
1. Pink Spoonbill · Platalea ajaja 2. Brown-breasted sandpiper · Recurvirostra Americana 3. Three-toed sandpiper · Calidris alba 4. Half-webbed Plover · Charadrius semipalmatus
1. Snowy Owl · Bubo scandiacus 2. American Falcon · Falco sparverius
1. Carolina Parrot Conuropsis carolinensis 2. Canadian Wesson Warbler · Cardellina canadensis 3. Black-headed Wesson Warbler · Cardellina pusilla 4. Black-naped Wesson Warbler · Setophaga citrina
1. American Green Heron · Butorides virescens 2. Night Heron · Nycticorax nycticorax 3. Night Heron (Juvenile) · Nycticorax nycticorax 4. Great Egret · Ardea alba
1. American Whirling Wood Sparrow · Certhia americana 2. Golden Crown Dai Ju · Regulus satrapa 3. Warbler Wren · Troglodytes aedon 4. Black-capped · Poecile atricapillus 5. American Crested · Baeolophus bicolor 6. Winter Wren · Troglodytes hiemalis
John Gerald Colemans
JohnGerrard Keulemans（1842-1912）
The best illustrator in 19th-century bird books
Colemans was born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, in 1842. Working as a taxidermist at the Leiden Museum of Natural History as a young man, in 1864, at the age of 22, Colemans went on an expedition to West Africa with the encouragement of the museum's curator, Hermann Schelegel, whose excellent painting skills attracted the attention of many people.
He then moved to England, where Colemans illustrated the writings of a number of naturalists and zoologists and academic magazines, and according to incomplete statistics, Colemans created 4,000–5,000 works in his lifetime, mainly birds, but also a few mammals, insects and shellfish.
As a professional illustrator, Colemans did not have to worry about the cost of publishing, so he added a lot of bird habitat content to the painting, and took up the changes in the virtual reality, highlighting the birds in the environment.
Colemans's consistent style of painting sought to paint birds in greater detail has led to some unfair criticism, although some critics have argued that Colemans was far superior to his contemporaries.
Because Colemans's works are copied and disseminated through traditional slate printing, and the images reproduced by slate printing need to be colored by hand, and the coloring work is mostly carried out by some semi-skilled technicians on the assembly line, there is a gap between the printed work and the original work, which is the reason for its criticism.
Either way, Colemans was one of the finest bird painters of the 19th century.
White-winged interlocutor · Loxia leucoptera
Northern Long-tailed · Aegithalos caudatus
Red-fronted goldfinch · Carduelis carduelis
Yellow-throated bee tiger · Merops apiaster
Longitudinal-bellied owl · Athene noctua