Birds on a wire; John James Audubon.(Biographies of John James Audubon, bird artist extraordinaire)(Book Review)

From: The Economist (US) | Date: August 7, 2004 | Copyright information

A whopping great whooping crane

COUNTLESS journals have told of the beauty and danger of early America's wilderness. Far fewer have included attempts to sketch it. Thank goodness, then, for the perseverance of John James Audubon, the bastard son of a French naval officer, who came alone to America as a teenager in 1803.

Audubon's genius was for drawing birds. But in the days before cameras, first he had to kill them. After marvelling at the grace of, say, a w...

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