John James Audubon Born (1785)

John James Audubon is unquestionably the greatest artist of avian life that the world has ever seen.  Others may surpass him in technical detail or realism or expressive emotion, but none performed the feat that makes him the king of ornithologists.

Jean Rabin was born on April 26, 1785, in what is now Haiti.  He was the illegitimate son of a French sea captain and his French mistress.  His mother died soon after his birth and he was sent to France to live with his father’s wife.  In France, he lived the good life of a wealthy merchant family.  He wanted for little, as he said:  “Hunting, fishing, drawing, and music occupied my every moment.  Cares I knew not, and cared naught about them.”

His father and step-mother adopted him formally, changing his name to Jean-Jacque Audubon.  In 1803, when he was 18, his father snuck Audubon out of the country to avoid his drafting into Napoleon’s army.  On the ship to America, he changed his name to an English form:  John James Audubon.

He was sent to his father’s estate in Mill Grove, Pennsylvania, to oversee a lead mining business.  The business failed, and Audubon, with his new wife, Lucy, moved to Kentucky, settling first in Louisville, later in Henderson.  His attempts at business again failed, and Audubon was briefly jailed over his debts.

John James Audubon, age 41 (1826 oil painting by John Syme, photo by The White House Historical Association)

But his interest in birds and drawing them never faltered.  He said, “I never for a day gave up listening to the songs of our birds, or watching their peculiar habits, or delineating them in the best way I could.”  The wilds of America gave Audubon a blank canvas to fill with bird life. Lucy knew that her husband had an extraordinary talent, and she encouraged him to explore, discover and paint.  Audubon made money however he could—painting portraits, teaching dance, performing taxidermy—but Lucy kept bread in the house for her and their children through work as a teacher and governess.  He wrote, “My wife determined that my genius should prevail, and that my final success as an ornithologist should be triumphant.”

Audubon sought that triumph through a grand plan—to paint every bird in America, at life size, in a natural setting.  “How could I make a little book,” he wrote, “when I have seen enough to make a dozen large books?”  When he had amassed enough paintings to demonstrate his skills and visualize his dream, he sought a publisher.  Finding none in the United States, he traveled to England in 1824.  He was an immediate sensation.  His paintings fascinated the aristocracy, feeding their romantic view of the American frontier.  Audubon sold subscriptions to his paintings—for the astounding prices of $1,000, a near fortune at the time—around England and Europe.  He found a publisher and engraver to carry the work forward.

He returned to America and continued the enormous task before him.  He traveled throughout the continent, shot or bought birds, mounted them immediately and then drew and painted them.  Page by page his portfolio expanded.  His monumental Birds of America was published in serial form from 1827-1838.  The completed work included 435 life-sized prints of 1065 birds in 489 species.  It was printed on the biggest paper available, called an elephant folio, each piece measuring about 26 inches by 39 inches.  Laid side by side, the prints would stretch for one-quarter of a mile.

Plate 1 in Audubon’s “The Birds of America,” showing Wild Turkey (photo by University of Pittsburgh)

Birds of America rightfully established Audubon as the greatest bird painter of all time, but he was more than just an artist.  He was the first person known to have put bands on birds to track their migration; he tied colored yarn on the legs of Phoebes, learning that they returned to the same location year after year.  He performed experiments to show that vultures were visual scavengers, disproving the common belief that they found food by scent.  He wrote a companion book for his prints, Ornithological Biography, that described the natural history of the species he drew.  He was hard at work on an equally grand vision to paint all the mammals of North America, but the project ended with his death at age 65.

He was also a conservationist, fully aware that the transformation of the eastern U.S. from forest to farm and then to city was reducing the abundance of birds and other wildlife.  He succinctly summed up his—and, I would venture, our modern—philosophy of conservation:  “A true conservationist is a man who knows that the world is not given by his fathers, but borrowed from his children.”

References:

Audubon Society.  John James Audubon, The American Woodsman:  Our Namesake and Inspiration.  Available at:  http://www.audubon.org/content/john-james-audubon.  Accessed April 21, 2018.

Biography.  John James Audubon.  Available at:  https://www.biography.com/people/john-james-audubon-9192248.  Accessed April 21, 2018.

Brainy Quote.  John James Audubon Quotes.  Available at:  https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/john_james_audubon.  Accessed April 21, 2018.

Chowder, Ken.  2007.  John James Audubon:  Drawn From Nature.  American Masters, PBS.  Available at:  http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/john-james-audubon-drawn-from-nature/106/.  Accessed April 21, 2018.

Florida Museum of Natural History.  John James Audubon.  Available at:  https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/naturalists/audubon01.htm.  Accessed April 21, 2018.

This Month in Conservation

September 1
Martha, the last Passenger Pigeon, Died (1914)
September 2
President Roosevelt Dedicated Great Smoky National Park (1940)
September 3
Wilderness Act passed (1964)
September 4
Fort Bragg, Home of Red-cockaded Woodpeckers, Established (1918)
September 5
UNESCO Established First World Heritage Sites (1978)
September 6
Alcide d’Orbigny, French Naturalist, Born (1802)
September 7
Edward Birge, Father of Limnology, born (1851)
September 8
UN Millennium Declaration ratified (2000)
September 9
First “Bug” Found in Computer (1945)
September 10
Henry Hardtner, Father of Southern Forestry, Born (1870)
September 11
World Wildlife Fund Began Operations (1961)
September 12
Canyonlands National Park Established (1964)
September 13
Walter Reed born (1851)
September 14
Marc Reisner, Author of Cadillac Desert (1948)
September 15
Darwin reaches the Galapagos Islands (1835)
September 16
Ed Begley Jr., Environmental Advocate, born (1949)
September 17
Edgar Wayburn, Wilderness Advocate, Born (1906)
September 18
Grey Owl, Pioneering Conservationist in Canada, Born (1888)
September 19
Urmas Tartes, Estonian Nature Photographer, born (1963)
September 20
AAAS Founded (1848)
September 21
Assateague Island National Seashore Created (1965)
September 22
Peace Corps becomes law (1961)
September 23
Rose Selected as U.S. National Flower (1986)
September 24
President Kennedy Dedicated Pinchot Institute (1963)
September 25
Pope Francis Addressed the UN on the Environment (2015)
September 26
Johnny Appleseed Born (1774)
September 27
“Silent Spring” Published (1962)
September 28
National Public Lands Day
September 29
Steinhart Aquarium opens (1923)
September 30
Hoover Dam Dedicated (1935)
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