Did you know that the first person to cage a budgerigar was John Gould, the 19th-century English artist/naturalist? Or that the word ‘penguin’ is derived from the Welsh words ‘pen’ (white) and ‘gwyn’ (head)? Or that there is no scientific (in other words fossil) evidence that the dodo ever existed? These are just three informative nuggets from Katrina Cook’s entertaining text for her sumptuously illustrated elephant-folio-size history of bird art.
That Birds is as enjoyable to read as to look at reflects the author’s unusual combination of artistic and scientific talent: a bird artist, qualified bird ringer and curator at the Natural History Museum; a specialist in printing techniques, who has a particular interest in the art of John James Audubon (1785-1851), widely regarded as the supreme bird artist.
Birds is a pleasingly idiosyncratic pictorial history of the last 700 years of bird art and illustration.
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