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John James Audubon: The Making of an American, by Richard Rhodes
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From the Pulitzer Prize—winning historian Richard Rhodes, the first major biography of John James Audubon in forty years, and the first to illuminate fully the private and family life of the master illustrator of the natural world.
Rhodes shows us young Audubon arriving in New York from France in 1803, his illegitimacy a painful secret, speaking no English but already drawing and observing birds. We see him falling in love, marrying the wellborn English girl next door, crossing the Appalachians to frontier Kentucky to start a new life, fashioning himself into an American just as his adopted country was finding its identity.
Here is Audubon exploring the wilderness of birds–pelicans wading the shallows of interior rivers, songbirds flocking, passenger pigeons darkening the skies–and teaching himself to revivify them in glorious life-size images. Now he finds his calling: to take his hundreds of watercolor drawings to England to be engraved in a great multivolume work called The Birds of America. Within weeks of his arrival there in 1826, he achieves remarkable celebrity as “the American Woodsman.” He publishes his major work as well as five volumes of bird biographies enhanced by his authentic descriptions of pioneer American life.
Audubon’s story is an artist’s story but also a moving love story. In his day, communications by letter across the ocean were so slow and uncertain that John James and his wife, Lucy, almost lost each other in the three years when the Atlantic separated them–until he crossed the Atlantic and half the American continent to claim her. Their letters during this time are intimate, moving, and painful, and they attest to an enduring love.
We examine Audubon’s legacy of inspired observation–the sonorities of a wilderness now lost, the brash life of a new nation just inventing itself–precisely, truthfully, lyrically captured. And we see Audubon in the fullness of his years, made rich by his magnificent work, winning public honor: embraced by writers and scientists, fêted by presidents and royalty.
Here is a revelation of Audubon as the major American artist he is. And here he emerges for the first time in his full humanity–handsome, charming, volatile, ambitious, loving, canny, immensely energetic. Richard Rhodes has given us an indispensable portrait of a true American icon.
- Sales Rank: #75642 in Books
- Published on: 2004-10-12
- Released on: 2004-10-12
- Format: Deckle Edge
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.48" h x 1.43" w x 6.57" l, 2.02 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 528 pages
- Birds
- Biographies
- Audubon, Audubon Society
- Ornithology
- Science
Most helpful customer reviews
29 of 32 people found the following review helpful.
An illuminating look at a man and his times.
By Amazon Customer
This fantastic book has something for everyone. Rhodes does an excellent job of breathing life into Audubon the man without losing touch of Audubon the artist or Audubon the scientist. In the process, he paints a vivid portrait of America of the early 19th century. This is an outstanding work of biography, naturalism, and history wrapped up in one great book.
Born to a French planter on what is present day Haiti and raised in France, Audubon came to America at a young age. As he endures a few business failures, Audubon turns back to his first loves: birds and painting. In an age prior to photography, he goes to great lengths to capture the true likeness of birds on paper with the ultimate goal of creating a complete (as possible) catalog of American birds. Some might be shocked by his methods. Few birders today would encourage the hunting of birds as a means of appreciating their beauty. But, we must keep in mind the times he came from and that without this method much of our knowledge of birds would be limited. One thing I truly enjoyed about this biography was the view as Audubon as a man who not only painted birds but knew about them in minute detail because he studies them in the field. It brims over with adventure as Audubon goes on many of his missions to gather more birds. Further, Rhodes does not make the mistake of many a biographer: thoroughly examining their subject while presenting one-dimensional portraits of the other folks in the subject' life. Numerous people, including friends and relatives, are depicted in all their dimensions and shed further light on Audubon and his times. Of particular note is Audubon's wife Lucy, without whom it is doubtful that he could have accomplished all he did.
Included in the book are beautiful reproductions of Audubon's art, which most of us have seen. However, as we read of the conditions under which these masterpieces were painted we gain a new respect for these works of art. After reading this book, you will be inspired to grab your binoculars (which JJA didn't have) and go birding. Highly recommended. I think all readers can find something to like in this superb book.
49 of 58 people found the following review helpful.
Rich but poorly focused biography, short on natural history
By Richard E. Hegner
When I saw that Pulitzer Prize winner Richard Rhodes had written a new biography of John James Audubon, I rushed to acquire it, knowing that Rhodes had a solid reputation as a good writer and a thorough historian. While this latest book by Rhodes is certainly rich in biographical detail and presents a full picture of its subject, it is somewhat disappointing insofar as it gives relatively limited attention to what made Audubon famous-his interest and talent in natural history, particularly birds.
Rhodes describes the crucial events in Audubon's life very thoroughly, digging into primary documents quite ably and portraying his subject in a way that is bound to leave any reader with a full understanding of Audubon the man and his relationship with the key players in his life, including his long-suffering wife and two talented sons. But he devotes far more attention to the earliest part of Audubon's life than he does to the artist's final years. This is especially frustrating because Audubon's early life was beset with failures in business ventures that are really not that interesting or important to understanding the man, and the final years of his life included a pioneering trip up the Missouri River to the Yellowstone country, collecting mammals for his last published work.
The most striking weakness of the book is Rhodes's limited knowledge of birds. It is perhaps because of this deficit in the author's background that he devotes relatively little attention to the avian species which Audubon discovered and was the first to paint. While Rhodes states that he plans to include the modern names of bird species in parentheses after the archaic names from Audubon's time for those species where this is warranted, he does so inconsistently. He also shows little appreciation for the differing distribution of birds in Audubon's time-missing the significance, for example, of white pelicans as common birds on the Ohio River, which has not been the case for a century and more. He also never points out that a number of Audubon's contemporaries gave their surnames to a number of species-including Bachman, Bonaparte, Say, Swainson, and Traill. Having had the manuscript of the book reviewed by one or more ornithologists would have helped overcome many of these deficits.
Having pointed out this weakness, it is only fair for me to note that Rhodes does show an unusual appreciation for Audubon's artistry and artistic technique which is illuminating for the reader. The book would have benefited from a sharper editing, however, to reduce its length, since it is rather laborious reading. It would also have caught some glaring errors--such as stating that on the trip to Yellowstone, Audubon travelled from Baltimore to Cumberland, KY, then to Wheeling, WV, and Louisville. (Obviously, he went from Baltimore to Cumberland, MD, then to Wheeling.)
19 of 22 people found the following review helpful.
America as it was rumored to be.
By John Matlock
A new and extensive biography of a man revered but really little known. His pictures of birds are still reprinted. He managed to capture the essence of the bird in a way that really hasn't been done since. He captured in his drawings a feeling that this was the birds life. He captured this in a time before the camera. He was able to capture a sense of movement, of flight that still today is astounding.
We know the work of Audubon, but little about him or his life. We now know that he observed the birds, shot a few of them, posed them using wire to hold them in place, drew his pictures and had the birds for dinner. (Not something I suspect that the Audubon society puts at the beginning of their literature.)
Audubon's story is almost a defining story for what America was supposed to be. The illegitimate son of the French middle class, coming to America at 18 in part to escape serving in Napoleon's army. He made a marriage out of love that survived failing businesses, moves about the interior of the country and finally a long separation as he went to England to promote his masterpiece, a book of paintings of all of the (known) birds of North America.
This book is more than just a biography, it is also a history of a side of America not usually discussed. Among other things it covers the big earthquake in Missouri, the first railroads, a story of the middle part of America.
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