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Nell Patterson
Writing Assignment 12
Encounters with Nature
The Art of Copying
Drawing has never really been my strength. In fact, artistic practice in general has always
been a struggle for me. When first told this assignment included “copying” a page from the
Audobon, I was surprisingly not worried. However, after what seemed like endless sketching, I
realized just how difficult the task was going to be. Copying may seem simple, but trying to get
every detail and proportion for this large illustration was nearly impossible. After further
frustration, I began to realize what many scientific illustrators had been dealing with for
centuries: what to copy. According to Karen Nickelson of the images created by Draughtsman in
the 18th and 19th century, “about three-quarters of the images are connected, in one way or
another, through copying links.”1 However, as I had realized, it is not as easy as simply copying.
Similar to Draughtsmen of the past, I decided to not only copy, but‘”improve’—in the largest
sense of the word—the illustrations of their predecessors” 2. I am not sure I completely
succeeded, but the process of making modifications helped me realize the intricacies and
peculiarities of the Audobon illustrations.
As much as I liked to not believe it, I do not think I actually improved upon the image of
the Audobon illustration. Instead, the act of copying made me wonder what in the Audobon was
emphasized for its importance. It did not take long to figure that the birds, butterflies and leaves
were of the utmost importance. They are the only part of the page. The most shocking piece
about the Audobon is there is absolutely no background. The leaves, birds and butterflies seem to
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.
2 Nickelson, no page given
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jump off the page with absolutely no connection to the world around it. The lack of background
connects to the images seen in the Nickelson and Freedburg pieces. In these essays, the botanical
illustrations that accompany the objects have an “unadorned concentration on a single part of a
plant”3 as Freedburg explains. The point of botanical illustration was to view the details of an
organism in order to name it, not so it would look beautiful. Another indication that the
organisms are the focal point is their color. The dark browns and blacks of the birds provide
contrast to the various greens of the leaves, which brings their shapes into focus. All of these
colors provide stark contrast to the pure white of the background of the paper. It brings the eye
into the birds, caterpillar and leaves and the details associated with these illustrations.
Additionally, the point of view of the painting compared to the size of the illustration is
indicative of the importance of the organisms in the drawing. The scene depicted is of only three
birds, insects and a few leaves. Presumably, this scene would not take up very much physical
space if it were part of reality. It seems to be only a small section of a branch of a tree. However,
the image is very large and is contained within an even larger book. The actual illustration is
magnified to such a degree that the details of the organisms become more important. It took me
the most amount of time to figure out exactly how to incorporate the unique pattern on the birds
and the leaves characteristics in order to get the drawing somewhat correct. The whiskers on the
birds seem large and significant, but if I had seen this drawn to its true scale I may not have even
noticed. Nickelson explains that these illustrations “were meant to communicate typical features
3
David Freedberg, “The Doctor’s Dilemmas,” The Eye of the Lynx (Chicago: University of Illinois
Press, 2002), 299.
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of plant species,”4 instead of the reality of the drawing. The organisms in the drawing are
undoubtedly the focus, which was typical of the botanical illustrations of the time.
There is more to the Audobon book than just a picture. The picture relative to the
enormity of the book is just as important as what it depicts. A sense of space when looking at an
aesthetic object is vital to understanding its purpose. As I was drawing the picture, I noticed I
only drew the illustration, but a majority of the page is not the illustration. In fact, it only takes
up part of the page in the middle. The rest is completely white, with only a few words written in
the corners and below the picture. This vast amount of white space focuses the viewer on the
illustration’s organisms. There are simply no other details to fascinate the eye other than the
central focus of the picture, which is the organisms. It made me think about why exactly such a
large book was printed, if only part of the page was being used. Freedburg explains this as a need
to find more detail in botanical illustration. He notes that Linceans struggled to curb detail as
“There were always more surfaces to be found, and ever a beyond. When to stop, when to know
that one had reached the last innard?”5 Therefore, such a large border of white highlights the
never-ending need for detail. Another puzzling aspect of space in the Audobon illustration is the
sense of a horizon. There is no horizon at all. The birds and leaves simply overlap with no sense
of space, foreground or background and no relation to an outside environment. Without a
horizon, the eye is lost in trying to understand the scene as a whole and instead grapples with the
objects in isolation. Nickelson said this was consistent with the scientific nature of botanical
illustrations as most illustrations were a “general view of the plant against a neutral
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5
Nickelson, no page given
Freedburg, pg. 286.
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background.”6 The background or sense of space in the Audobon illustration is about as neutral
as it gets because there is no horizon at all.
Finally, my observations during my drawing lead me to one other prying question. How
exactly do the objects in the illustration relate to one another? After keen observation, I have
determined the organisms pretty much do not relate. Although all three birds are of the same
specie, presumably living in close quarters, none of the birds are touching. None of the birds are
looking at one another either. They do not seem to be part of a whole. The butterflies are
portrayed in a similar way. The butterflies are different sizes and colors indicating they are not
related to one another in anyway. Aside from the birds perched on the branches of the trees, the
leaves also do not create a sense of an environment. The leaves may have similar shapes, but
have vastly different colors. In summary, the organisms do not together create an environment,
but simply are parts of a whole. Freedburg describes this as a “concentration on particular parts
of a plant”7 Even though this is not just a picture of a plant, the emphasis in botanical illustration
was the parts, not the entire environment. Only specific parts of this environment were depicted
in the Audobon piece, instead of the entire tree, sky and nature that in reality would be
surrounding this scene.
As Karen Nickelson begins her essay, botanical illustrations “were not produced
principally for decorative purposes but in order to be published in books of the technical
literature in order to communicate botanical knowledge.”8 This helps explain my initial
frustrations with trying to copy the Audobon illustration. The piece is detailed with structure,
pattern and form of the birds, leaves and butterflies portrayed that it is difficult to draw the piece
6
Nickelson, no page given
Freedburg, pg. 299.
8 Nickelson, no page given
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as a whole. My inner need to connect all the pieces together was going against the intention of
these kinds of drawings. They were intended to be without background or environmental
connection, and meant to portray a factual reproduction of the anatomy of an organism. The act
of copying over time forced me to reconcile the realization that the illustration is not reality, but
a fictional illustration.
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