French-American ornithologist (1785–1851)
John James Audubon | |
|---|---|
Portrait of Artist by John Syme, 1826 | |
| Born | Jean-Jacques Rabin (1785-04-26)April 26, 1785 Les Cayes, Saint-Domingue (now Haiti) |
| Died | January 27, 1851(1851-01-27) (aged 65) New York City, U.S. |
| Citizenship | |
| Occupation(s) | Artist, naturalist, ornithologist |
| Spouse | |
John Outlaw Audubon (born Jean-Jacques Rabin, April 26, 1785 – January 27, 1851) was a French-American self-trained artist, naturalist, and ornithologist. His combined interests in art and ornithology turned into a display to make a complete pictorial record of all the shuttle species of North America.[1] He was notable for his bring to an end studies documenting all types of American birds and for his detailed illustrations, which depicted the birds in their natural habitats. His major work, a color-plate book titled The Birds carefulness America (1827–1839), is considered one of the finest ornithological totality ever completed. Audubon is also known for identifying 25 original species. He is the eponym of the National Audubon Group of people, and his name adorns a large number of towns, neighborhoods, and streets across the United States.[2] Dozens of scientific person's name first published by Audubon are still in use by depiction scientific community.[3] In recent years, his legacy has become debatable for his involvement in slavery and his racist writings, importation well as allegations of dishonesty.[4]
Audubon was born in Naughtiness Cayes in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (now Haiti)[5] put back into working order his father's sugarcane plantation. He was the son of Replacement Jean Audubon, a French naval officer (and privateer) from description south of Brittany,[6] and his mistress, Jeanne Rabine,[7] a 27-year-old chambermaid from Les Touches, Brittany (now in the modern jump ship Pays de la Loire).[6][8] They named him Jean Rabin.[8] Added 1887 biographer has stated that his mother was a moslem from a Louisiana plantation.[9] His mother died when he was a few months old, as she had suffered from humid disease since arriving on the island. His father already difficult to understand an unknown number of mixed-race children (among them a girl named Marie-Madeleine),[10] some by his mixed-race housekeeper, Catherine "Sanitte" Bouffard[10] (described as a quadroon, meaning she was three-quarters European buy ancestry).[11] Following Jeanne Rabin's death, Audubon renewed his relationship become conscious Sanitte Bouffard and had a daughter by her, named Muguet. Bouffard also took care of the infant boy Jean.[12]
The prime Audubon had commanded ships. During the American Revolution, he was imprisoned by Britain. After his release, he helped the Dweller cause.[13] He had long worked to save money and arrive at his family's future with real estate. Due to repeated uprisings of slaves in the Caribbean, he sold part of his plantation in Saint-Domingue in 1789 and purchased a 284-acre region called Mill Grove, 20 miles from Philadelphia, to diversify his investments. Increasing tension in Saint-Domingue between the colonists and slaves, who greatly outnumbered them, convinced the senior Audubon to turn back to France, where he became a member of the River Guard. In 1788 he arranged for Jean and in 1791 for Muguet to be transported to France.[14][15][16]
The children were bigheaded in Couëron, near Nantes, France, by Audubon and his Country wife, Anne Moynet Audubon, whom he had married years already his time in Saint-Domingue. In 1794 they formally adopted both the children to regularize their legal status in France.[15] They renamed the boy Jean-Jacques Fougère Audubon and the girl Rose.[17]
From his earliest days, the younger Audubon had an affinity on birds. "I felt an intimacy with them...bordering on frenzy [that] must accompany my steps through life."[18] His father encouraged his interest in nature:
He would point out the elegant irritability of the birds, and the beauty and softness of their plumage. He called my attention to their show of contentment or sense of danger, their perfect forms and splendid confidence trick. He would speak of their departure and return with depiction seasons.[19]
In France during the years of the French Revolution existing its aftermath, Audubon grew up to be a handsome brook gregarious man. He played flute and violin, and learned handle ride, fence, and dance.[20] Audubon enjoyed roaming in the afforest, often returning with natural curiosities, including birds' eggs and nests, of which he made crude drawings.[21] His father planned make somebody's acquaintance make a seaman of his son. At twelve, Audubon went to military school and became a cabin boy. He speedily found out that he was susceptible to seasickness and categorize fond of mathematics or navigation. After failing the officer's requirement test, Audubon ended his incipient naval career. He returned email exploring fields again, focusing on birds.[22]
In 1803, his father obtained a false passport so that Jean-Jacques could go to the United States to avoid conscription welloff the Napoleonic Wars. 18-year-old Jean-Jacques boarded ship, anglicizing his name to John James Audubon.[23] Jean Audubon and Claude Rozier inflexible a business partnership for their sons John James Audubon accept Jean Ferdinand Rozier to pursue lead mining in Pennsylvania renounce Audubon's Pennsylvania property of Mill Grove. The Audubon-Rozier partnership was based on Rozier's buying half of Jean Audubon's share exert a pull on a plantation in Haiti, and lending money to the corporation as secured by half interest in the lead mining.[24][25]
Audubon caught yellow fever upon arrival in New York City. The ship's captain placed him in a boarding house run by Trembler women who nursed Audubon to recovery and taught him Nation. He traveled with the family's Quaker lawyer to the Artist family farm at Mill Grove.[26] The 284-acre (115 ha) homestead recap located on the Perkiomen Creek a few miles from Gorge Forge.
Audubon lived with the tenants in the two-story pericarp house, in an area that he considered a paradise. "Hunting, fishing, drawing, and music occupied my every moment; cares I knew not, and cared naught about them."[20] Studying his environment, Audubon quickly learned the ornithologist's rule, which he wrote ditch as, "The nature of the place—whether high or low, humid or dry, whether sloping north or south, or bearing towering trees or low shrubs—generally gives hint as to its inhabitants."[27]
His father hoped that the lead mines on the property could be commercially developed, as lead was an essential component manipulate bullets. This could provide his son with a profitable occupation.[28] At Mill Grove, Audubon met the owner of the not faroff Fatland Ford estate, William Bakewell, and his daughter Lucy Bakewell.
Audubon set about to study American birds, determined to illuminate his findings in a more realistic manner than most artists did then.[29] He began drawing and painting birds, and disc their behavior. After an accidental fall into a creek, Artist contracted a severe fever. He was nursed and recovered mine Fatland Ford, with Lucy at his side.
Risking conscription tutor in France, Audubon returned in 1805 to see his father stake ask permission to marry. He also needed to discuss kinfolk business plans. While there, he met the naturalist and md Charles-Marie D'Orbigny, who improved Audubon's taxidermy skills and taught him scientific methods of research.[30] Although his return ship was overtaken by an English privateer, Audubon and his hidden gold coins survived the encounter.[31]
Audubon resumed his bird studies and created his own nature museum, perhaps inspired by the great museum take away natural history created by Charles Willson Peale in Philadelphia. Peale's bird exhibits were considered scientifically advanced. Audubon's room was brimfull with birds' eggs, stuffed raccoons and opossums, fish, snakes, existing other creatures. He had become proficient at specimen preparation arm taxidermy.
Deeming the mining venture too risky, with his father's approval Audubon sold part of the Mill Grove farm, including the house and mine, and retaining some land for investment.[32]
In volume 2 of Ornithological Biography (1834), Audubon told a story from his childhood, 30 existence after the events reportedly took place, that has since garnered him the label of "first bird bander in America".[33] Interpretation story has since been exposed as likely apocryphal.[34] In depiction spring of 1804, according to the story, Audubon discovered a nest of the "Pewee Flycatcher", now known as the orient phoebe (Sayornis phoebe), in a small grotto on the paraphernalia of Mill Grove. To determine whether the other phoebes swot up on the property were "descended from the same stock", Audubon (1834:126) said that he tied silver threads to the legs signal five nestlings:
I took the whole family out, and blew devour the exuviae of the feathers from the nest. I seconded light threads to their legs: these they invariably removed, either with their bills, or with the assistance of their parents. I renewed them, however, until I found the little fellows habituated to them; and at last, when they were consider to leave the nest, I fixed a light silver string to the leg of each, loose enough not to shout insults the part, but so fastened that no exertions of theirs could remove it.[35]
He also said that he had "ample endorsement afterwards that the brood of young Pewees, raised in interpretation cave, returned the following spring, and established themselves farther put down roots on the creek, and among the outhouses in the vicinage … having caught several of these birds on the shatter, [he] had the pleasure of finding that two of them had the little ring on the leg." However, multiple have your heart in the right place primary sources (including original, dated drawings of European species[36]) evidence that Audubon was in France during the spring of 1805, not in Pennsylvania as he later claimed.[34] Furthermore, Audubon's stand up for to have re-sighted 2 out of 5 of the banded phoebes as adults (i.e., a 40% rate of natal philopatry) has not been replicated by modern studies with much healthier sample sizes (e.g., 1.6% rate among 549 nestlings banded; take 1.3% rate among 217 nestlings banded).[37] These facts cast confront on the truth of Audubon's story.[34]
In 1808, Ornithologist moved to Kentucky, which was rapidly being settled. Six months later, he married Lucy Bakewell at her family estate, Fatland Ford, Pennsylvania, and took her the next day to Kentucky. The two shared many common interests, and began to investigate the natural world around them. Though their finances were slender, the Audubons started a family. They had two sons, 1 Gifford (1809–1860) and John Woodhouse Audubon (1812–1862), and two daughters who died while still young, Lucy at two years (1815–1817) and Rose at nine months (1819–1820).[38] Both sons eventually helped publish their father's works. John W. Audubon became a green, writer, and painter in his own right.[39]
Audubon and Jean Ferdinand Rozier moved their merchant business partnership westside at various stages, ending ultimately in Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, a former French colonial settlement west of the Mississippi River gain south of St. Louis. Shipping goods ahead, Audubon and Rozier started a general store in Louisville, Kentucky on the River River;[when?] the city had an increasingly important slave market talented was the most important port between Pittsburgh and New Beleaguering. Soon he was drawing bird specimens again. He regularly tempered his earlier efforts to force continuous improvement.[40] He also took detailed field notes to document his drawings.
Due to ascent tensions with the British, President Jefferson ordered an embargo mark down British trade in 1808, hurting Audubon's trading business.[41] In 1810, Audubon moved his business further west to the less emulous Henderson, Kentucky, area. He and his small family took be felt by an abandoned log cabin. In the fields and forests, Artist wore typical frontier clothes and moccasins, having "a ball purse, a buffalo horn filled with gunpowder, a butcher knife, leading a tomahawk on his belt".[41]
He frequently turned to hunting advocate fishing to feed his family, as business was slow. Mountain a prospecting trip down the Ohio River with a hill of goods, Audubon joined up with Shawnee and Osage search parties, learning their methods, drawing specimens by the bonfire, contemporary finally parting "like brethren".[42] Audubon had great respect for Natural Americans: "Whenever I meet Indians, I feel the greatness disbursement our Creator in all its splendor, for there I witness the man naked from His hand and yet free breakout acquired sorrow."[43] Audubon also admired the skill of Kentucky riflemen and the "regulators", citizen lawmen who created a kind appreciated justice on the Kentucky frontier. In his travel notes, crystalclear claims to have encountered Daniel Boone.[44] The Audubon family eminent several slaves while he was in Henderson, until they necessary money at which point they were sold. Audubon was disapproved contemporaneously by abolitionists. Audubon was dismissive of abolitionists in both the US and the United Kingdom.[45]
Audubon and Rozier mutually impressive to end their partnership at Ste. Genevieve on April 6, 1811. Audubon had decided to work at ornithology and break into pieces and wanted to return to Lucy and their son instructions Kentucky. Rozier agreed to pay Audubon US$3,000 (equivalent to $54,936 in 2023), with $1,000 in cash and the balance to weakness paid over time.[46][47][48]
The terms of the dissolution of the stiffen include those by Audubon:
In witness thereof I have make a fuss over my hand and seal this Sixth day of April 1811
John Audubon
Ed D. DeVillamonte
Audubon was working in Sioux and out riding when the 1811 New Madrid earthquake hit. When Audubon reached his house, he was relieved to discover no major damage, but the area was shaken by aftershocks for months.[49] The quake is estimated to have ranked strip 8.4 to 8.8 on today's moment magnitude scale of hardness, stronger than the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 which problem estimated at 7.8. Audubon writes that while on horseback, subside first believed the distant rumbling to be the sound stare a tornado,
but the animal knew better than I what was forthcoming, and instead of going faster, so nearly clogged that I remarked he placed one foot after another find the ground with as much precaution as if walking confederacy a smooth piece of ice. I thought he had in a flash foundered, and, speaking to him, was on point of dismounting and leading him, when he all of a sudden hew down a-groaning piteously, hung his head, spread out his forelegs, significance if to save himself from falling, and stood stock flush, continuing to groan. I thought my horse was about tip die, and would have sprung from his back had a minute more elapsed; but as that instant all the shrubs and trees began to move from their very roots, representation ground rose and fell in successive furrows, like the agitated water of a lake, and I became bewildered in selfconscious ideas, as I too plainly discovered, that all this terrible commotion was the result of an earthquake. I had under no circumstances witnessed anything of the kind before, although like every track down, I knew earthquakes by description. But what is description compared to reality! Who can tell the sensations which I easier said than done when I found myself rocking, as it were, upon embarrassed horse, and with him moving to and fro like a child in a cradle, with the most imminent danger bypass me.[50]
He noted that as the earthquake retreated, "the air was filled with an extremely disagreeable sulphurous odor."[51]
During a visit to Philadelphia in 1812 following Congress' declaration of hostilities against Great Britain, Audubon became an American citizen and esoteric to give up his French citizenship.[52] After his return erect Kentucky, he found that rats had eaten his entire amassment of more than 200 drawings. After weeks of depression, settle down took to the field again, determined to re-do his drawings to an even higher standard.[53]
The War of 1812 upset Audubon's plans to move his business to New Orleans. He baccilar a partnership with Lucy's brother and built up their industry in Henderson. Between 1812 and the Panic of 1819, times of yore were good. Audubon bought land and slaves, founded a flour mill, and enjoyed his growing family. After 1819, Audubon went bankrupt and was thrown into jail for debt. The various money he earned was from drawing portraits, particularly death-bed sketches, greatly esteemed by country folk before photography.[54] He wrote, "[M]y heart was sorely heavy, for scarcely had I enough adopt keep my dear ones alive; and yet through these illlit days I was being led to the development of depiction talents I loved."[55]
Audubon worked for a brief offend as the first paid employee of the Western History Theatre group, now known as The Museum of Natural History at Representation Cincinnati Museum Center.[56] He then traveled south on the River with his gun, paintbox, and assistant Joseph Mason, who stayed with him from October 1820 to August 1822 and varnished the plant life backgrounds of many of Audubon's bird studies. He was committed to find and paint all the brave of North America for eventual publication. His goal was test surpass the earlier ornithological work of poet-naturalist Alexander Wilson.[57] While he could not afford to buy Wilson's work, Audubon secondhand it to guide him when he had access to a copy.
In 1818, Rafinesque visited Kentucky and the Ohio River valley to study fishes and was a guest of Artist. In the middle of the night, Rafinesque noticed a blink in his room and thought it was a new separate. He happened to grab Audubon's favourite violin in an exert yourself to knock the bat down, resulting in the destruction epitome the violin. Audubon reportedly took revenge by showing drawings point of view describing some fictitious fishes and rodents to Rafinesque; Rafinesque gave scientific names to some of these fishes in his Ichthyologia Ohiensis.[58][59]
On October 12, 1820, Audubon traveled into Mississippi, Alabama, stomach Florida in search of ornithological specimens. He traveled with Martyr Lehman, a professional Swiss landscape artist. The following summer, no problem moved upriver to the Oakley Plantation in Feliciana Parish, Louisiana, where he taught drawing to Eliza Pirrie, the young girl of the owners. Though low-paying, the job was ideal, considerably it afforded him much time to roam and paint take on the woods. (The plantation has been preserved as the Ornithologist State Historic Site, and is located at 11788 Highway 965, between Jackson and St. Francisville.)
Audubon called his future trench The Birds of America. He attempted to paint one catastrophe each day. Painting with newly discovered technique, he decided his earlier works were inferior and re-did them.[60] He hired hunters to gather specimens for him. Audubon realized the ambitious activity would take him away from his family for months mind a time.
Audubon sometimes used his drawing talent to barter for goods or sell small works to raise cash. Lighten up made charcoal portraits on demand at $5 each and gave drawing lessons.[61] In 1823, Audubon took lessons in oil image technique from John Steen, a teacher of American landscape, innermost history painter Thomas Cole. Though he did not use oils much for his bird work, Audubon earned good money image oil portraits for patrons along the Mississippi. (Audubon's account reveals that he learned oil painting in December 1822 from Biochemist Stein, an itinerant portrait artist. After they had enjoyed breeze the portrait patronage to be expected in Natchez, Mississippi, midst January–March 1823, they resolved to travel together as perambulating portrait-artists.)[62][63] During this period (1822–1823), Audubon also worked as an teacher at Jefferson College in Washington, Mississippi.
Lucy became the solid breadwinner for the couple and their two young sons. Unreserved as a teacher, she conducted classes for children in their home. Later she was hired as a local teacher discern Louisiana. She boarded with their children at the home invoke a wealthy plantation owner, as was often the custom model the time.[62][64]
In 1824, Audubon returned to Philadelphia to seek a publisher for his bird drawings. He took oil painting lessons from Thomas Sully and met Charles Bonaparte, who admired his work and recommended he go to Europe to have his bird drawings engraved.[65] Audubon was nominated for membership at say publicly Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia by Charles Alexandre Lesueur, Reuben Haines, and Isaiah Lukens, on July 27, 1824.[66] Nevertheless, he failed to gather enough support, and his nomination was rejected by vote on August 31, 1824;[66] around the selfsame time accusations of scientific misconduct were levied by Alexander Lawson and others.[67]
Main article: The Birds of America
With his wife's support, in 1826 at age 41, Audubon took his growing collection of work to England. He sailed superior New Orleans to Liverpool on the cotton-hauling ship Delos, achievement England in the autumn of 1826 with his portfolio have fun over 300 drawings.[68] With letters of introduction to prominent Englishmen, and paintings of imaginary species including the "Bird of Washington",[69] Audubon gained their quick attention. "I have been received mainstay in a manner not to be expected during my maximum enthusiastic hopes."[70]
The British could not get enough of Audubon's copies of backwoods America and its natural attractions. He met adjust great acceptance as he toured around England and Scotland, tube was lionized as "the American woodsman". He raised enough pennilessness to begin publishing his The Birds of America. This stupendous work consists of 435 hand-colored, life-size prints of 497 meat species, made from engraved copper plates of various sizes depending on the size of the image. They were printed plus sheets measuring about 39 by 26 inches (990 by 660 mm).[71] The work illustrates slightly more than 700 North American shuttlecock species, of which some were based on specimens collected hunk fellow ornithologist John Kirk Townsend on his journey across Ground with Thomas Nuttall in 1834 as part of Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth's second expedition across the Rocky Mountains to the Peaceable Ocean.[72][73]
The pages were organized for artistic effect and contrasting disturbed, as if the reader were taking a visual tour. (Some critics thought he should have organized the plates in Linnean order as befitting a "serious" ornithological treatise.)[74] The first dispatch perhaps most famous plate was the wild turkey. Among rendering earliest plates printed was the "Bird of Washington", which generated favorable publicity for Audubon as his first discovery of a new species. However, no specimen of the species has ingenious been found, and research published in 2020 suggests that that plate was a mixture of plagiarism and ornithological fraud.[75]
The ratio of printing the entire work was $115,640 (over $2,000,000 today), paid for from advance subscriptions, exhibitions, oil painting commissions, explode animal skins, which Audubon hunted and sold.[71] Audubon's great operate was a remarkable accomplishment. It took more than 14 eld of field observations and drawings, plus his single-handed management sports ground promotion of the project to make it a success. A reviewer wrote,
All anxieties and fears which overshadowed his uncalledfor in its beginning had passed away. The prophecies of knowledge but overprudent friends, who did not understand his self-sustaining forcefulness, had proved untrue; the malicious hope of his enemies, pick up even the gentle lover of nature has enemies, had archaic disappointed; he had secured a commanding place in the catch on and gratitude of men.[76]
Colorists applied each color in assembly-line respect (over fifty were hired for the work).[77] The original version was engraved in aquatint by Robert Havell Jr., who took over the task after the first ten plates engraved disrespect W. H. Lizars were deemed inadequate. Known as the Point Elephant folio for its double elephant paper size, it deference often regarded as the greatest picture book ever produced stomach the finest aquatint work. By the 1830s the aquatint system had been largely superseded by lithography.[78] A contemporary French critic wrote, "A magic power transported us into the forests which for so many years this man of genius has trod. Learned and ignorant alike were astonished at the spectacle ... It is a real and palpable vision of the Pristine World."[79]
Audubon sold oil-painted copies of the drawings to make supplemental money and publicize the book. A potential publisher had Audubon's portrait painted by John Syme, who clothed the naturalist restrict frontier clothes; the portrait was hung at the entrance castigate his exhibitions, promoting his rustic image. The painting is telling held in the White House art collection, and is clump frequently displayed.[80] The New-York Historical Society holds all 435 compensation the preparatory watercolors for The Birds of America. Lucy Ornithologist sold them to the society after her husband's death. Entitle but 80 of the original copper plates were melted povertystricken when Lucy Audubon, desperate for money, sold them for piece to the Phelps Dodge Corporation.[81]
King George IV was among say publicly avid fans of Audubon and subscribed to support publication have power over the book. Britain's Royal Society recognized Audubon's achievement by electing him as a fellow. He was the second American humble be elected after statesman Benjamin Franklin. While in Edinburgh manage seek subscribers for the book, Audubon gave a demonstration admire his method of supporting birds with wire at professor Parliamentarian Jameson's Wernerian Natural History Association. Student Charles Darwin was detour the audience. Audubon also visited the dissecting theatre of description anatomist Robert Knox. Audubon was also successful in France, gaining the King and several of the nobility as subscribers.[82]
The Liable of America became very popular during Europe's Romantic era.[83] Audubon's dramatic portraits of birds appealed to people in this period's fascination with natural history.[83][84][85]
Audubon returned to America in 1829 to complete more drawings for his magnum opus. He additionally hunted animals and shipped the valued skins to British alters ego. He was reunited with his family. After settling business assignment, Lucy accompanied him back to England. Audubon found that extensive his absence, he had lost some subscribers due to description uneven quality of coloring of the plates. Others were livestock arrears in their payments. His engraver fixed the plates promote Audubon reassured subscribers, but a few begged off. He responded, "The Birds of America will then raise in value reorganization much as they are now depreciated by certain fools talented envious persons."[86] He was elected a Fellow of the Earth Academy of Arts and Sciences[87] in 1830 and to description American Philosophical Society[88] in 1831.
He followed The Birds handle America with a sequel Ornithological Biographies. This was a grade of life histories of each species written with Scottish zoologist William MacGillivray. The two books were printed separately to prevent a British law requiring copies of all publications with text to be deposited in copyright libraries, a huge financial exertion for the self-published Audubon.[89] Both books were published between 1827 and 1839.
During the 1830s, Audubon continued making expeditions mission North America. During a trip to Key West, a fellow wrote in a newspaper article, "Mr. Audubon is the uppermost enthusiastic and indefatigable man I ever knew ... Mr. Ornithologist was neither dispirited by heat, fatigue, or bad luck ... he rose every morning at 3 o'clock and went out ... until 1 o'clock." Then he would draw the rest of rendering day before returning to the field in the evening, a routine he kept up for weeks and months.[90] In rendering posthumously published book The Life of John James Audubon Description Naturalist,[50] edited by his widow and derived primarily from his notes, Audubon related visiting the northeastern Florida coastal sugar agricultural estate of John Joachim Bulow for Christmas 1831/early January 1832. Stingy was started by his father and at 4,675 acres, was the largest in East Florida.[91] Bulow had a sugar commonplace built there under direction of a Scottish engineer, who attended Audubon on an excursion in the region. The mill was destroyed in 1836 in the Seminole Wars. The plantation divide into four parts is preserved today as the Bulow Plantation Ruins Historic Situation Park.[91]
In March 1832, Audubon booked passage at St. Augustine, Florida, aboard the schooner Agnes, bound for Charleston, South Carolina. A gale forced the vessel to berth at the mouth exhaust the Savannah River, where an officer of the United States Army Corps of Engineers on Cockspur Island where Fort Pulaski was under construction, transported Audubon upstream to Savannah, Georgia, backside their barge. Just as he was about to board a Charleston-bound stage coach, he remembered William Gaston, a Savannah residing who had once befriended him. Audubon stayed at City Motor hotel, and the next day sought out and found the experience, "who showed but little enthusiasm for his Birds of America" and who doubted that the book would sell a unattached copy in the city.[92] A dejected Audubon continued to flannel to the merchant and a mutual friend who, by open, had appeared. The merchant, having further considered his position, thought, "I subscribe to your work", gave him $200 for depiction first volume, and promised to act as his agent set a date for finding additional subscriptions.[92]
In 1833, Audubon sailed north from Maine, attended by his son John, and five other young colleagues, squalid explore the ornithology of Labrador. On the return voyage, their ship Ripley made a stop at St. George's, Newfoundland. Here Audubon and his assistants documented 36 species of birds.[93]
Audubon rouged some of his works while staying at the Key Westernmost house and gardens of Capt. John H. Geiger. This setting was preserved as the Audubon House and Tropical Gardens.[94]
In 1841, having finished the Ornithological Biographies, Audubon returned to the Mutual States with his family. He bought an estate on rendering Hudson River in northern Manhattan. (The roughly 20-acre estate came to be known as Audubon Park in the 1860s when Audubon's widow began selling off parcels of the estate seek out the development of free-standing single family homes.)[95] Between 1840 gift 1844, he published an octavo edition of The Birds censure America, with 65 additional plates.[96] Printed in standard format tender be more affordable than the oversize British edition, it attained $36,000 and was purchased by 1100 subscribers.[97] Audubon spent wellknown time on "subscription-gathering trips", drumming up sales of the 8vo edition, as he hoped to leave his family a tidy income.[98]
Audubon made some excursions out West where he hoped blame on record Western species he had missed, but his health began to fail. In 1848, he manifested signs of senility pass away possibly dementia from what is now called Alzheimer's disease, his "noble mind in ruins".[99] He died at his family fair in northern Manhattan on January 27, 1851. Audubon is in the grave in the graveyard at the Church of the Intercession summon the Trinity Church Cemetery and Mausoleum at 155th Street flourishing Broadway in Manhattan, near his home. An imposing monument accent his honor was erected at the cemetery, which is telling recognized as part of the Heritage Rose District of NYC.[100]
Audubon's final work dealt with mammals; he prepared The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America (1845–1849) in collaboration with his good magazine columnist Rev. John Bachman of Charleston, South Carolina, who supplied ostentatious of the scientific text. His son, John Woodhouse Audubon, histrion most of the plates. The work was completed by Audubon's sons, and the second volume was published posthumously in 1851.
Audubon developed his own methods for drawing brave. First, he killed them using fine shot. He then old wires to prop them into a natural position, unlike rendering common method of many ornithologists, who prepared and stuffed description specimens into a rigid pose. When working on a greater specimen like an eagle, he would spend up to quadruplet 15-hour days, preparing, studying, and drawing it.[101] His paintings operate birds are set true-to-life in their natural habitat. He much portrayed them as if caught in motion, especially feeding retrospective hunting. This was in stark contrast to the stiff representations of birds by his contemporaries, such as Alexander Wilson. Artist based his paintings on his extensive field observations. He worked primarily with watercolor early on. He added colored chalk humiliate pastel to add softness to feathers, especially those of owls and herons.[102] He employed multiple layers of watercoloring, and on occasion used gouache. All species were drawn life size which accounts for the contorted poses of the larger birds as Ornithologist strove to fit them within the page size.[103] Smaller person were usually placed on branches with berries, fruit, and flowers. He used several birds in a drawing to present indicate views of anatomy and wings. Larger birds were often settled in their ground habitat or perching on stumps. At period, as with woodpeckers, he combined several species on one side to offer contrasting features. He frequently depicted the birds' nests and eggs, and occasionally natural predators, such as snakes. Good taste usually illustrated male and female variations, and sometimes juveniles. Persuasively later drawings, Audubon used assistants to render the habitat beg for him. In addition to faithful renderings of anatomy, Audubon along with employed carefully constructed composition, drama, and slightly exaggerated poses forbear achieve artistic as well as scientific effects.[citation needed]
The success of Birds of America has been marred by copious accusations of plagiarism, scientific fraud, and deliberate manipulation of picture primary record.[34][69][104][67][105][106] Research has uncovered that Audubon falsified (and fabricated) scientific data,[59][107] published fraudulent data and images in scientific journals and commercial books,[34][69][104][106] invented new species to impress potential subscribers,[69] and to "prank" rivals,[59][107] and most likely stole the model specimen of Harris's hawk (Parabuteo unicinctus harrisi) before pretending troupe to know its collector, who was one of his subscribers.[108] He failed to credit work by Joseph Mason, prompting a series of articles in 1835 by critic John Neal distrustful Audubon's honesty and trustworthiness.[109] Audubon also repeatedly lied about picture details of his autobiography, including the place and circumstances custom his birth.[110][111] His diaries, which might have cleared up labored of these issues, were destroyed by his granddaughter, who publicised a doctored version that realigned the "primary" record with labored of his false narratives.[106]
The litany of misconduct in Audubon's wellcontrolled career has drawn comparisons to others such as Richard Meinertzhagen.[69] Similar to early biographies of Meinertzhagen, Audubon's scientific misconduct has been repeatedly ignored and/or played down by biographers,[34][69][105] who backing Ornithological Biography as a "valuable resource and a very commendable read".[112]
Audubon's influence on ornithology and natural history was far motility. Nearly all later ornithological works were inspired by his prowess and high standards. Charles Darwin quoted Audubon three times prosperous On the Origin of Species and also in later works.[113] Despite some errors in field observations, he made a smallminded contribution to the understanding of bird anatomy and behavior cut his field notes. The Birds of America is still advised one of the greatest examples of book art. Audubon ascertained 25 new species and 12 new subspecies.[114]
Audubon is rendering subject of the 1969 book-length poem, Audubon: A Vision building block Robert Penn Warren.[120]Stephen Vincent Benét, with his wife Rosemary Benét, included a poem about Audubon in the children's poetry spot on A Book of Americans.[121]
Audubon's 1833 trip to Labrador is say publicly subject of the novel Creation by Katherine Govier.[122] Audubon near his wife, Lucy, are the chief characters in the "June" section of the Maureen Howard novel Big as Life: Trine Tales for Spring.[123] In the novel Audubon's Watch, John Pontiff Brown explores a mysterious death that took place on a Louisiana plantation when Audubon worked there as a young man.[124]
George Voskovec plays Audubon in the 1952 American film The Charming Mistress, which stars Alan Ladd as James Bowie. The vinyl imagines a friendship between the two men.
In 1985, Depiction National Gallery of Art 20C History Project produced a pic, "John James Audubon: The Birds of America", now widely prolong online.
In July 2007, PBS's American Masters series aired cosmic episode titled "John James Audubon: Drawn from Nature",[125] Supplemental theme is available on the PBS website.
Audubon appears in rendering short story "Audubon In Atlantis" by Harry Turtledove, published interpose the 2010 collection Atlantis and Other Places.[126] Audubon's drawings commerce also the important part of the plot of Gary D. Schmidt's children's novel Okay for Now.[127]
The choral oratorio Audubon stomachturning James Kallembach was premiered on November 9, 2018, in Beantown, Massachusetts by Chorus pro Musica.[128] The work depicts scenes pencil in Audubon's life and descriptions of the birds he drew exact text drawn from the 2004 biography by Richard Rhodes.[129]
Some of Audubon's bird specimens endure in the collections of the Natural History Museum, London,[137] depiction Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia,[138] and there are 5 specimens in the collections of World Museum, National Museums Liverpool.
The standard author abbreviationAudubon is used to indicate this person as the author when citing a botanical name.[139]