John James Audubon

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John James Audubon

John James Audubon , full name John James La Forest Audubon, (born April 26, 1785 in Les Cayes , Haiti , † January 27, 1851 in New York ) was an American ornithologist and draftsman . His main work is The Birds of America . He also described some types of plants; its official botanical author abbreviation is " Audubon "; earlier it was also the abbreviation “ Audub. " in use.

Youth and first research trips

Icterus melanocephalus audubonii , a representative of the Trupiale

A French sea captain and was the son of Audubon plantation nbesitzers and a Creole born. His name was Jean Rabine after his mother. His mother died six months after his birth, and from August 1788 Jean grew up with his stepmother Anne Moynet in Nantes . In March 1789 he was adopted by his father and given the name Jean-Jacques Fougère Audubon. Whether he was later a student of the history painter Jacques-Louis David is a matter of dispute today. In 1803 he went to America with a false passport obtained from his father .

Portrait of Audubon by John Syme , 1826

The 18-year-old probably wanted to avoid military service in Napoleon's army . Shortly after or during the crossing, he fell ill with jaundice and was cared for in a hospital run by Quakers , where he learned English and where he first met his future wife, Lucy Bakewell. After his recovery, the Mill Grove family estate near Philadelphia became the new residence of John James Audubon, as he was now called Americanized. There he lived as a hunter , trader and taxidermist . In 1808 he married Lucy Bakewell. At Mill Grove, the young researcher also carried out what is believed to be the first bird ringing in North America: he marked songbirds with string and found out that they return to the same nesting site every year.

His business took him west along the Ohio River to the states of Pennsylvania and Kentucky . In Henderson he finally opened a grocer . Presumably there he met Alexander Wilson , the other great American ornithologist of the time , in 1810 .

Audubon's wife gave birth to two sons, Victor Gifford and John Woodhouse, and a daughter who died early. As a pastime, Audubon made numerous bird drawings, as he had done in France. After some initial success, however, his business situation deteriorated and in 1819 he was jailed for a short period of time for bankruptcy .

It is possible that while in custody he developed his ambitious plan to catalog all bird species in North America, which he implemented shortly afterwards. Together with an assistant he started a trip down the Mississippi River . In the spring of 1821 he arrived in New Orleans , where he lived for a few months. The following summer he went upriver again to work in Louisiana for a family of plantation owners as a drawing teacher and to explore the local bird life. During these trips his wife stayed in civilization and earned money as a private tutor. Audubon himself earned something with commissioned portraits.

When painting the birds, Audubon always proceeded according to the same scheme: first he shot the animals, using very fine shot in order to minimize the damage to the body. Then he used wires to fix the carcasses in natural-looking positions and to draw them. With this reference to nature, Audubon stood out from the other scientific draftsmen of his time and laid the foundation for his later success. A report that the researcher himself wrote about his work shows that he shot more than 100 birds a day.

In 1827 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh . In 1830 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences , and three years later to the National Academy of Design .

Success with Birds of America

Audubon at an advanced age
Columba carolinensis , from Birds of America , Volume IV, Plate 17

At first Audubon tried to find a publisher for his drawings in Philadelphia, but had no luck, among other things because he had got into technical conflicts with the local scientific society. In 1826 he traveled to England with his partially completed work. As "American Ranger" and with its life-size drawings of birds, he quickly reached popularity and found a printer for The Birds of America ( Birds of America ), the 435 hand-colored picture boards with the display of more than 1,000 copies includes.

The publication was a complete success, in which, from today's point of view, the aquatints by Robert Havell (1793–1878), who supplied all printing plates except the first ten, played an important part as an artist. Even King George IV was enthusiastic about the drawings. During a visit to Edinburgh , Audubon demonstrated the wire method of restraining the dead birds. At one of these lectures, the student Charles Darwin was among the audience.

Together with the Scottish ornithologist William MacGillivray , Audubon wrote a kind of "life stories" ( Ornithological Biographies or life histories ) of all kinds in his book. The four volumes of the birds of America as well as the biographies appeared between 1827 and 1838 and contained numerous first descriptions such as that of the yellow-billed catfish ( Pica nuttalli ).

Due to the economic success, which was not least due to his personal popularity, Audubon achieved a certain wealth, but continued to undertake several expeditions through North America and finally settled in New York on an estate on the Hudson, which is now called Audubon Park . In 1842 a very successful American edition of The Birds of America appeared .

In the last years of his life, Audubon became increasingly senile. He undertook his last expedition in 1843. The resulting work on the mammals of North America ( Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America ) was largely completed by his sons and his Lutheran pastor friend John Bachman , whose daughter had married one of Audubon's sons. John James Audubon is buried in Trinity Cemetery in New York.

Aftermath

Regardless of its zoological usefulness, "The Birds of America" ​​has secured Audubon enduring artistic fame. The work is still regarded today as the benchmark of drawing skills for nature painters. A subscription copy of the Birds of America fetched more than $ 8.8 million at a Christie’s auction in March 2000. In December 2010, an edition of the book reached the then new record price of 7,321,250 pounds (approx. 8.72 million euros) in an auction at Sotheby’s . It was the most expensive printed book of all time for nearly three years.

Passenger pigeon

The Audubon Societies

As early as 1886, an association of bird and nature lovers was founded in the USA under the name Audubon Society for the Protection of Birds . Several other foundings, expressly related to Audubon, followed. In 1901, the associations merged to form the National Committee of Audubon Societies , which in the following period mainly campaigned against hunting birds for the extraction of decorative feathers. Today the society consists of more than 500 local member associations in the USA, is committed to nature and especially bird protection and offers members a forum for all topics related to bird watching.

Commemoration

Several municipalities and administrative units in the United States are named after John James Audubon, including Audubon , Pennsylvania , where Audubon's former residence, Mill Grove, is. Today it is a museum dedicated to the naturalist. The John James Audubon State Park , a nature reserve in Kentucky , also contains a museum about Audubon. The Audubon Avenue in Upper Manhattan is dedicated to Audubon.

The Audubon Nature Institute in New Orleans is a foundation-run institute that operates several museums and nature parks as well as research facilities and conservation projects, including the Audubon Insectarium , the Audubon Park and the Audubon Zoo in New Orleans .

In May 2011 the John James Audubon Bridge , a cable-stayed bridge over the Mississippi in southern Louisiana , opened and Google dedicated a doodle to Audubon on April 26, 2011, his 226th birthday .

Works

bibliography

  • Claus Nissen: The zoological book illustration. Your bibliography and history. Volume I: Bibliography . Anton Hiersemann Verlag Stuttgart 1969. Pages 25-26, 28, 436.

literature

Web links

Commons : John James Audubon  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Former Fellows 1783-2002. Royal Society of Edinburgh, accessed October 6, 2019 .
  2. ↑ nationalacademy.org: Past Academicians ("A") ( Memento of the original dated November 9, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (accessed on March 15, 2015)  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.nationalacademy.org
  3. ^ Entry: Havell, Robert, Jr. In: Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica 2009 Ultimate Reference Suite. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica, 2009.
  4. ↑ Christie's: AUDUBON, John James (1785-1851). The Birds of America; from Original Drawings. London: Published by the Author, 1827-1838 , auction March 10, 2000, lot 39, sale 9326
  5. ^ Sotheby's: Audubon, John James: The Birds of America; From Original Drawings by John James Audubon: Published by the Author 1827–1838 , auction on December 7, 2010, session 1, lot 50
  6. ↑ Most expensive book in the world achieves record auction price . Die Welt, December 8, 2010
  7. ^ Doodle April 26, 2011 , www.google.com
personal data
SURNAME Audubon, John James
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Audubon, John James La Forest (full name); Audubon, John James Laforest
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American ornithologist and draftsman
DATE OF BIRTH April 26, 1785
PLACE OF BIRTH Les Cayes , Haiti
DATE OF DEATH January 27, 1851
Place of death new York