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Michael Osorio
Professor Lopez
Encounters With Nature
8 November 2011
For Art Or For Science? That Is The Question!
Perhaps the most important step in attempting to understand the significance of the
painting from The Audobon is trying to discover the purpose for which it was made. Once we
know whether or not this painting was created for scientific understanding or for artistic and
aesthetic pleasure, we may then find it easier to grasp why it is that certain aspects of the
painting look a certain way. The book we refer to as The Audobon, is one of the greatest works
in the field of ornithology ever created because it is such a huge collection of such astounding
illustrations of so many different types of birds. I hold the belief that this particular page
assigned for us to examine was created for the purpose of having a greater scientific
understanding rather than simply for aesthetic pleasure. In supporting my opinion, I call upon
such aspects of the painting as: its use of motion, its composition, as well as some particular
details that attention needs to be drawn too.
The primary focus of this illustration is on the wildlife specimens of the birds and
butterflies. Without those essential elements, the painting would undoubtedly lose its meaning
and thus have no reason for being created at all. The big question here is whether or not these
birds and butterflies are here because they make a pleasing composition together that would look
nice in a frame or because the artist is trying to give us a better understanding of the anatomy and
behavior of the species. There is a greater emphasis on motion than there is on stasis, and that is
because it is artistically more convenient when painting birds and butterflies to depict them in
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flight because with their wingspan’s open, more of their characteristic visual features can be
portrayed. The greatest inference to be made upon this observation is that the bird species is
purposefully repeated three times in different phases of flight in order to depict the full range of
motion of the bird. This aspect is very similar to a technique in botanical illustrations of
“combining different stages of development” into one depiction of the specimen.1 Since artists
would do this with plants in order to introduce more knowledge about the physiology of the
species, and I assume the same motive behind the illustrator of these birds is indeed the same.
The only drawback of using this technique in scientific illustrations is that it is not necessarily
completely accurate to have all phases present at the same place in the same time, since this
would never happen in nature. You could probably never encounter three birds (of presumably
the same species) and two butterflies and a caterpillar all in the special arrangement and fluidity
of motion shown in the illustration in nature. It is absurd and probably physically impossible.
This fault in its accuracy almost derailed my belief in its scientific purpose until I realized it had
a specific reason.
Spending a class in the archives allowed us to witness for ourselves a great and diverse
collection of works with botanical illustrations as their focus. Experiencing this for myself was a
helpful resource when trying to uncover the mysteries behind the Audubon page assigned to us.
During that class, I observed that many of the illustrations of wildlife were for created purely for
artistic expression and could potentially be hung in someone’s living room, while others had no
intention of being pretty and instead focused on demonstrating the finest details of the anatomy
of certain specimens. In her work describing the history of the method of botanical draughtsmen,
1
Kärin Nickelson, “Draughtsmen, Botanists and Nature: Constructing Eighteenth-Century Botanical
Illustrations,” Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 37 (2006): 1-25
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Nickelson notes that several of these illustrations were created “not only for decoration but also
for practical purposes”2 meaning that both aesthetics and scientific accuracy were taken into
equal account when molding such works. I noticed that the assigned illustration from The
Audobon had an interesting background choice of being a blank white space. Nickelson also
talks about how the “design of the background” was a “purely aesthetic question” and often left
up to the artist.3 The decision of using a blank white canvas behind the illustration is aesthetic
because it contrasts most strongly with the depictions in order to emphasize them further but it is
also keeping in design with similar works of scientific illustration. I remember certain examples
from the archives that were exclusively for physiological understanding and that had simple,
white, bare backgrounds because the artist wanted to focus solely on the specimen he was
depicting. Although a tree branch with several leaves is present, I believe that it is merely in an
effort to sustain natural accuracy, in other words, to make the scene a bit more realistic.
Only after close analysis of the work did I discover very fine details that contribute
heavily to the argument that this page from The Audobon contains an illustration with academic
purpose. On the bottom of the page, I found a few names written in Latin, and I assume those
labels to be the scientific names of the bird, butterflies, and perhaps even the tree. With this
evidence, and because there is a significant amount of detail drawn in, the tree’s physiology may
also be taken as a primary focus of this work. Pavord, in her historical narrative about the
beginnings of the botanical garden, says that early nature enthusiasts attempted to use Latin to
“forge a system that, eventually, could accommodate every thing that lived on earth.”4 The
2
Kärin Nickelson, “Draughtsmen, Botanists and Nature: Constructing Eighteenth-Century Botanical
Illustrations,” Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 37 (2006): 1-25
3 Kärin Nickelson, “Draughtsmen, Botanists and Nature: Constructing Eighteenth-Century Botanical
Illustrations,” Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 37 (2006): 1-25
4 Anna Pavord, chaps. XIII and XIV, in The Naming of Names: The Search for Order in the World of
Plants (London: Bloomsbury, 2005), 205-241
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scientific names of the species that are written on the bottom of the page identify each animal by
the Linnaeus system of classification using Latin. Their presence would not add to the artistic
flavor of the work but would rather add clarification and knowledge to the viewer. Any piece of
art that you could find hanging in someone’s den is most definitely not going to have the
scientific names of the creatures because that would be irrelevant. A scientific illustration
attempting to portray correct anatomical and even behavioral information on species would
indubitably find the scientific names useful. The second clue I found was the almost hidden
practice sketch of the bird’s foot on the lower right hand portion of the painting. If this were to
be a purely artistic piece of work, then surely the artist would not make the mistake of leaving
preliminary sketches in plain sight to hinder the aesthetic beauty of the piece. The artist wanted
to make sure that he had the most accurate rendering of the physiology of the bird possible,
because this illustration is for scientific visual reference.
In conclusion, this particular page from The Audobon, as well as many others I’m sure,
contains a scientific illustration of a natural depiction of birds and butterflies that are meant to be
anatomically accurate and that may also contain some aesthetic values. Sure, the work may be
beautiful and vivid, but that was not its only, or even its main, intention. The obviously attentiongrabbing use of detailed color and the combination of different natural elements make for an eyepleasing piece. While at the same time, multiple depictions of the bird in different phases of
flight, and the scientific names of the organisms, provide valuable information on an academic
basis. Whether or not this illustration is the most accurate or realistic depiction, it is still an
incredible example of how illustrations played a major role in the study of natural history.
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