Aline Kim
Writing Assignment 12
The Birds of America by John James Audubon is a collection of life-size bird
illustrations. Audubon’s goal in printing this book was to publish accurate illustrations of birds in
the Americas. The illustration of the Whip-poor-will in this book depicts three species of that
bird and a part of their “environment” which includes the Vulgo black oak, a caterpillar, and two
butterflies. However, while his depiction of the bird looks realistic because of the use of sharp
edges and details, by creating a static and artificial looking habitat through his use of colors,
Audubon portrays an overall untrustworthy, imprecise illustration of the Whip-poor-will in
nature.
The Whip-poor-wills are drawn true to size and shape, as Audubon is known to have had
killed, stuffed, and positioned his birds for his artworks. The birds, which are identified as one
male and two female, are drawn with extremely fine detail. The details of the feathers and the
heads captured the little color differences and the lines that make these birds unique from other
species. There is also no depth in the painting of the birds: the lines are all straight and precise.
Faber used the term “the sharp-eyed lynx” to “to emphasize the clarity and sharpness of vision” a
microscope is able capture.1 Audubon captures this sharp-eyed lynx through his clean portrayal
of the birds. The position of the birds is also significant because it adds motion to this
illustration. The birds form a circle and represent the sit, stand, and fly motion, and also
exemplify the male’s dominance over the sitting female partners. To add to this depiction of the
birds, Audubon adds a lone claw, a representation of the Linnaeus system of identification.
Linnaeus believed that scientific drawings should “depict the characteristic properties of a
1
David Freedberg, “The Doctor’s Dilemmas,” in The Eye of the Lynx: Galileo, his friends, and the beginnings of
modern natural history. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002), 276.
Linnaean species.”2 Thus, in many of the botanical art pieces in the Linnaean style, sexual
organs, the shape, the seeds of plants are often key identifying features of different plant species.
In the case of identifying birds, Audubon used the bird’s feet as a mean of identifying different
bird species in his book. Audubon also gives the commonly used name and the binomial
Linnaean name of both the bird and the tree. The Whip-poor-will bird is also known as
Camprimul Gus Vociferous and the Vulgo Black Oak as the Quercus Tinctoria. By including the
claw and clear, defined lines, Audubon’s painting exemplifies the earliest methods of capturing
nature through “accuracy and precision in illustration… [and] taxonomy and classification.”3
Although the three Whip-poor-will birds are painted as life-size replicas of the actual
species, the layout of the Vulgo black oak tree, the caterpillar, and the butterflies makes the
painting an artificial, and not a natural, scene. On the illustration, there is a caption that reads:
“Drawn from nature and Published by John J. Audubon FRS, ELS.” However, Audubon could
not have drawn his scene from nature as the birds live too high up in the trees, and because birds
do not pose for paintings. The addition of the caterpillar, butterflies and leaves, which can be
inferred as the main niche for the birds, are static in comparison to the birds. The scientific and
common names of the caterpillar and butterfly are not given, allowing viewers to infer that they
were important to the birds diet. Contrary to the caption, this scene is not drawn from nature and
displays a posed habitat of the Whip-poor-will bird without including any written description
about the bird’s habitat. In order to construct a more accurate and scientific illustration, Audubon
should have drawn his subject in the center with a white or a plain colored background that
would allow the bird to be the main focus, as Johann Ambrosius Beurer instructed his
2Karin
Nicklesen, “Draughtsmen, Botanists and Nature: Constructing Eighteenth-Century Botanical Illustrations,”
Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 37 (2006): 6.
3 David Freedberg, “The Doctor’s Dilemmas,” in The Eye of the Lynx: Galileo, his friends, and the beginnings of
modern natural history. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002), 300.
2
draughtsman to do in the botanical paintings he commissioned.4 In Audubon’s engraving, the
bird is not in the center – the center is empty. In doing so, the engraving is looked at as an entire
artistically crafted scene and not specifically the bird that Audubon is focusing on.
The use of color also makes the painting more aesthetical than scientific. Linnaeus had
excluded color as a means of classifying plants and animals because color differed for those
living in different areas and because it was nearly impossible to reproduce the exact colors of a
species.5 The use of color in this engraving, especially the bright colors on the butterflies, makes
the painting pleasing to the viewers. The use of color also makes the painting “clean” by leaving
out the some “imperfections” or signs of decay in nature. For example, some of the tree leaves
are torn, which should naturally lead to a discoloration; however, Audubon chooses not to
include this slight change. The color of the leaves also seems unnatural as they range from a
shade of light green to a bluish green. Some leaves are half light green and half dark green,
confusing viewers on the true colors of the tree. In addition, there is no depth: when plants
overlap, there most often is a shadow cast on the bottom leaf, but Audubon leaves this detail out,
while he does include the many vines of the leaves. While in using different shades of green and
blue the overall painting seems unnatural, the contrast of these discolored leaves against the
brown, black and white of the bird makes the Whip-will-poor birds standout in the illustration as
the primary subjects, although the improved background detracts from the legitimacy of the
painting.
The paintings accuracy can also be questioned when looking at the publication
information. Audubon was the publisher of the entire book, but the Whip-poor-will illustration
was “Engraved, Printed & Colored by R. Havell.” In her essay, Nickelsen describes how
4
Karin Nicklesen, “Draughtsmen, Botanists and Nature: Constructing Eighteenth-Century Botanical Illustrations,”
Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 37 (2006): 7.
5 Nicklesen, “Draughtsmen, Botanists and Nature,” 8.
3
illustrations were often a drawing of words: the botanist or scientist instructed the draughtsman
as to how to portray the subject.6 From my observation of the painting, I inferred that Audubon
instructed Havell as to how to position the birds and what features of the habitat to include.
However, it is impossible to distinguish what the artist contributed to the painting from what he
was instructed to illustrate. Who decided on the color? Why were certain details of the bird
included? How did the Audubon and Havell negotiate on what details should be included? And
did Havell have any education on the Whip-poor-will or birds in general? This relationship
between Audubon and Havell is crucial in understanding how accurate the painting is, and how
useful it could be for scientific analysis and classification.
Although Audubon’s engraving of the individual Whip-poor-will is extremely accurate
and precise, the entire illustration lacks the fundamentals of a scientific illustration. If he had
drawn the bird in the Linnaean way, he would have included a representation of the bird and the
anatomy of it, rather than including an elaborate background. While the three birds are
positioned so that viewers can understand the relationship between male and female Whip-poorwill birds, the composition in the circular form creates a movement, which is an artistic element.
Although the individual species seem realistic in shape and size, Audubon’s intention of creating
such a book and his relationship with Havell creates questions about who was more important:
the artist or the naturalist? With this conflict and usage of color, the engraving is more likely to
be on display rather than be used in a science lab.
6
Nicklesen, “Draughtsmen, Botanists and Nature,” 8.
4
Bibliography
Freedberg, David. Introduction to The Eye of the Lynx: Galileo, his friends, and the beginnings
of modern natural history, 1-10. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002.
Freedberg, David. “The Doctor’s Dilemmas,” in The Eye of the Lynx: Galileo, his friends, and
the beginnings of modern natural history, 275-304. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 2002.
Nicklesen, Karin. “Draughtsmen, Botanists and Nature: Constructing Eighteenth-Century
Botanical Illustrations.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical
Sciences 37 (2006): 1-25.
5
6