Category Archives: Birds and Animal Art
Read about Bird and Wildlife Art created by the greatest naturalists from the gold age of exploration.
The 17th through 19th centuries were a time of rapid scientific and artistic progress. It was a time of discovery. New species were documented by the great naturalists of the time such as Mark Catesby, John Gould, and Daniel Giraud Elliot. Each of whom devoted their lives to expanding our knowledge of birds and animals and to appreciating their beauty.
Learn more in our featured articles such as The Interconnection between Rationality and Nonsense in Edward Lear’s Artwork, the The Mystery of the Extinct Great Auk, and Was Alexander Wilson’s Art Precursive of the Modern Field Guide?.
Freaks of Nature: Some of Nature’s Most Unusual Birds
With prehistoric links to the Jurassic period, the world of birds is rife with some [...]
Jun
Natural History Art Treasures under $10,000
Collecting original art doesn’t have to be expensive. In fact, there are a surprising number [...]
Jun
An Obsession with Natural History and Victorian Collecting Crazes
Spanning the majority of the 19th century, the Victorian era was marked by a rise [...]
Apr
Collecting Guide: Oppenheimer Editions Audubon Prints
Since its inception in 1996, our publishing company Oppenheimer Editions has partnered with major institutions [...]
Apr
Exploring Early Methods of Specimen Collection in Natural History Art
Have you ever wondered where the reference material for antique wildlife prints and paintings came [...]
Mar
The Alchemy of Nature – Using Gold in Natural History Art
While found less frequently in natural history art than other genres, gold nonetheless makes an [...]
Feb
John Gould’s Family of Hummingbirds Lithographs
John Gould’s monograph The Family of Hummingbirds is considered the crowning achievement of his illustrious [...]
Jan
Casualties of Fashion: The Contentious History of Plume Plundering
Though the idea of ornamenting oneself with a bird carcass may be a bit deterring [...]
Jul
The Birds of Paradise: One of Nature’s Most Elusive, Ostentatious, and Promiscuous Families
The Introduction of Birds-of-Paradise to the Western Imagination
Jun
The Articulation of Macabre Bird Habits in John Gould’s Prints
Exposing the unsavory tendencies of the Common Cuckoo and Great Grey Shrike in Gould’s Birds [...]
Jun
Original Duck & Geese Paintings by Louis Agassiz Fuertes
A beautiful selection of original watercolor paintings by renowned artist Louis Agassiz Fuertes has recently [...]
Jun
The Inclusion of Foreign Avian Species in Gould’s Birds of Europe
When browsing the contents of John Gould’s compendious Birds of Europe, the majority of the [...]
Jun
Was Alexander Wilson’s Art Precursive of the Modern Field Guide?
An examination of the stylistic qualities of Wilson’s art in relation to modern standards of [...]
Jun
Spontaneous Surrealism in Mark Catesby’s Artwork
An investigation of the thematic confluences between Surrealist art and Catesby’s prints
Apr
The Evolution of Audubon’s White-headed Eagle
The confluence of creative mechanisms behind Alexander Wilson and John James Audubon’s depictions of the [...]
Apr
The Mystery of the Extinct Great Auk
An Exploration of the Historical and Artistic Remanence of the Only Flightless Bird of the [...]
Apr
A Comparative Analysis of the Bird Prints of Prideaux John Selby and His Contemporaries
An exploration of the creative confluences and stylistic continuities between the artwork of Selby and [...]
Mar
Audubon’s Havell Edition of the Raven and American Crow
Sensorial engagement and the challenging of object-viewer relations in Audubon's prints
Nov
Catesby’s Crustaceans – Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands
Picturing Oddity and Abundance in British Colonial America.
Oct
Symbiosis of Art and Science in Audubon’s Pileated Woodpecker
The twofold nature of Audubon’s prints as both artistic and scientific is exemplified in his [...]
Oct
The Abyssinian Bird Portraits of Louis Agassiz Fuertes
A consideration of the creative techniques and viewer-object relations in Fuertes's watercolors
Jun
“A Transcript from Living Nature”
An overview of the structural blueprint underlying Alexander Wilson's American Ornithology
May
The Interconnection between Rationality and Nonsense in Edward Lear’s Artwork
A consideration of the relationship between Lear's scientific illustrations and Nonsense-verse caricatures.
Apr