Ornithology: Roses flourish on excrement, and great paintings may arise from grotesque events. John James Audubon's Golden Eagle is one of the best-loved images from his monumental The Birds of America, writes Paddy Woodworth.
It shows the great bird's subtle plumage in exquisite detail, as it ascends above a rocky wilderness, gripping a snowshoe hare. It looks as though the artist had painted the work from nature, and indeed Audubon knew such scenes more intimately than any of his rivals.
Only the fact that one of the eagle's talons is hooked rather gratuitously into the unfortunate bleeding hare's eye socket gives any hint of the gothic background to the artist's execution of the work. As Duff Hart-Davis suggests in his vivid biography of Audubon, however, this particular eagle might have been the protagonist in a horror story by Edgar Allen Poe.
Under great pressure, as ever, to meet yet another deadline for his self-imposed task of painting all the birds of the US and Canada, Audubon had bought the eagle live from a trapper in 1833. He found, however, that he could not paint it in this condition: he had to kill it first.
Though he had dedicated thousands of hours to direct observation of birds in their natural habitats, the artist almost always created his final works by his own method of wiring up dead specimens in lifelike attitudes. In many cases, he had shot them himself - he was an expert and prolific hunter. On this occasion, however, he decided "to take away his [the eagle's\] life with the least pain to him".
Bizarrely enough, the method he chose was suffocation by charcoal burning. When that failed after many hours, he added sulphur to the mix, nearly asphyxiating his whole household in the process. Nevertheless, "the noble bird continued to stand erect, and to look defiance at us whenever we approached his post of martyrdom". In despair, Audubon pierced the bird's heart with a steel rod. He painted it for the next 14 days wired up in different postures, before collapsing, close to death himself, from "a spasmodic affliction".
This episode is no stanger than many others in the extraordinary life of this titan in an age of giant naturalists. His skill as a woodsman and field naturalist was remarkable, his powers of physical and psychological endurance exceptional, and his obsessive dedication to a project that should have taken five lifetimes heroic. He was a passionate environmentalist before the term existed. His talent as a painter was, of course, unique.
All this is well-known, and the subject of many biographies over the last 150 years. What Hart-Davis brings to this very readable book is a focus on Audubon's "epic struggle" to publish his magnum opus, and the curious fact that such a quintessential New World pioneer could only find support for his enterprise in the Old World. He bases his account largely on Audubon's own very lively, wildly indiscreet, and occasionally unreliable journals.
The author's enthusiasm for his subject is almost as infectious as Audubon's own love for the natural world. Like the artist, Hart-Davis sometimes sacrifices precision to passion, especially in ornithological matters. But he succeeds in the unlikely task of making Audubon's adventures among patrons, publishers and fellow naturalists in Britain and France almost as interesting as his exploits in the wilds of Louisiana or Labrador.
Audubon had little preparation for this arduous mission. The illegitimate but cherished son of a French naval officer with American property, he had spent his early adult life failing as a small-scale businessman on the American frontier. He preferred to spend time with his beloved "feathered tribes" than behind a shop counter. The company he kept was usually uncouth, and sometimes savage, by the standards of the aristocratic and bourgeois literary circles into which he plunged when he arrived in Liverpool in 1826. And despite his wealth of first-hand experience of the natural world, he had no scientific training whatsoever.
He had temporarily abandoned his wife and young children in the United States. No American printer was willing to publish his portfolio on the hugely expensive format ("double elephant", 40 inches by 30 inches) on which he insisted, so that all birds could be represented life size. Even more problematically, he had also become engaged in a bitter feud with the promoters of a slightly earlier landmark publishing project, Alexander Wilson's American Ornithology. Very serious though often mean-spirited allegations would continue to be made against both his expertise and his integrity in relation to Wilson's work. Hart-Davis lets him off rather lightly in this controversy.
Within three years of arrival in Britain, Audubon had won the warm friendship of wealthy families and influential individuals. His admirers ranged from an eminent naturalist and artist, Thomas Bewick, to the Duc d'Orleans (later King Louis Phillipe of France). On a practical level, he gained the services of a competent (and very patient) printer, and an invaluable ghost writer for his rich but uneven prose work, the Ornithological Biography.
As his work progressed, he gained recognition in the US, becoming a dinner guest of presidents like Andrew Jackson. Publishing, however, then as now, was as fraught with bitter disappointments as with great triumphs, and the completion of his great work demanded huge measures of physical and psychological exertion, which seems to have broken him when all was done.
Excellent illustrations are well used in this beautifully produced book. It is both an enticing introduction to Audubon, and a sobering reflection on the human cost of genius and great achievement.
Paddy Woodworth is currently on a fellowship with the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa, where he is developing a project on bird migration and human culture
Audubon's Elephant By Duff Hart-Davis Weidenfield and Nicholson, 288pp. £18.99