Audubon

There’s a fascinating review of Richard Rhodes’ recent biography of Audubon in the Dec 6 issue of The Weekly Standard . The reviewer has this to say about the “pervasive strangeness ” of Audubon’s art: “Audubon’s most powerful compositions (with few exceptions, such as the regal wild turkey cock and the incomparable bursting galaxy of Carolina parakeets) are his depictions are avian predators and their prey. There is something undeniably grotesque and slightly distorted about these paintings, particularly the raptors. His peregrine falcons are wild-eyed, winged hounds of hell, dripping with blood from the ripped breast of their prey and staring out at the observer in impersonal defiance. His red-tailed hawks are splay-footed demons, harrowing and upstaging the purported subject of his bob white quail painting. His golden eagle hovers uncannily in mid-air on folded wings, one of its talons gratuitously piercing the bleeding eye of the white arctic hare in its grip. His snowy owls are moonlight apparitions rather than real birds. Even his Canada goose, among the more bovine of our water-fowl, has an oddly contorted neck, which, with its long, protruding pink tongue, gives it a serpentine look, while its mate, half-concealed in the dark of a cave-like bower, seems to be piercing the abdomen of the other’s belly with its beak.” Audubon thus “brought European Gothicism to American art as Poe brought it to American literature. For all their astounding and accurate detail and ‘lifelike’ poses, they seem otherworldly, and that is perhaps their greatest achievement.” I would never have put Poe and Audubon in the same category, but once the comparison is suggested, it’s hard to resist.