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John James Audubon: a birdwatcher’s fanciful flights
Author(s) -
Boime Albert
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
art history
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.1
H-Index - 19
eISSN - 1467-8365
pISSN - 0141-6790
DOI - 10.1111/1467-8365.00184
Subject(s) - redress , feather , art history , ideology , identity (music) , environmental ethics , history , art , sociology , anthropology , ecology , aesthetics , literature , philosophy , biology , political science , law , politics
John James Audubon, the bird‐lover of America, has never been submitted to the critical art‐historical analysis his career and production deserve. This essay attempts to redress the situation by showing that his ornithologically correct imagery is steeped in the predominant ideological formations of his time and place. A foreigner whose birth occurred in ambiguous circumstances, Audubon ventured into the forests of the New World to escape his origins and refashion his identity. Thus, his lifesize constructions of nestlings and fledglings, predators and preys, signified birds of a feather.