BIRD: The Great Age of Avian Illustration

Ornithological illustration from the 18th and 19th centuries is beautifully celebrated. It was a period of scientific, artistic and geographic discovery when people began to fully appreciate the immense variety of form and colour within the natural world, and this book celebrates that beauty through the lavish illustrations produced at that time. Here is the magnificent Frigatebird depicted by John James Audubon, Arctic puffins, pelicans, the Great Blue Heron, flamingoes, ducks, geese and swans, game birds and domesticated birds with their extraordinary plumage like the peacock-looking feathers of the grey peacock-pheasant and the multiple colours of the common pheasant or Sri Lankan Jungle Fowl. Organised by Sea Birds, Shorebirds, Wading Birds and Rails, Water Fowl, Game Birds and Domesticated Birds, Song Birds, Parrots and Other 'Exotic' Birds, Flightless Birds and Birds of Prey, this magnificent tome features sections on key ornithological artists such as Elizabeth Gould and Edward Lear and demonstrates how technology, travel and ambition shaped these amazing images and how their work transformed our understanding of the wonderful world of birds. Kennedy's biographies of the illustrators put these images into historical context and this truly is a wonderful book for the bird or art or history or science lover. Very large size colour reproductions, 352 beautiful quality pages, 22.5 x 32cm.
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