Mark Catesby, Naturalist/Artist

Drawing from Life? Naturalists added extra dimension to science

“I took liberty of examining that parrot and I discovered that the only reason it had been sitting on its perch in the first place was that it had been nailed there.”

—Monty Python’s Parrot Sketch

Story by TODAYWHENWESEE Elena Ivanova images of wild nature on the pages of illustrated magazines or on the screen, we rightfully assume that the intrepid nature lover was somewhere nearby to capture on the camera the precious moment of the white egrets performing the mating dance or the eagle feeding her young. It is absurd to doubt the naturalist’s presence at the scene. However, things were different in the past. Illustrated books which featured all sorts of plants and living organisms are perhaps among the oldest in the history of book making, but the practice of drawing images from direct observation of nature is quite recent. Medieval and Renaissance illustrators of natural history typically never laid eyes on the creatures they drew; their proof of authenticity was the accuracy with which they copied pictures from older books and manuscripts. Later, drawing from stuffed specimens became widely popular. In 1828, John James Audubon, in a letter to a friend, criticized this practice which, in his mind, did little to promote the true knowledge of nature. He commented that stuffed animals were often nothing more than filled skins, which had been shaped without any knowledge of the animal’s anatomy and then adorned and positioned according to the fancy of the taxidermist.

So what method did Audubon employ to create his Birds of America? The great master claimed that he drew from life as he observed nature during his long excursions into the woods. However, upon his return, he did something very different from what we might have expected an artist to do. This is how Audubon described his working process in the same letter: “My drawings have all been made after individuals fresh killed, mostly by myself, and put up before me by means of wires, &c. in the precise attitude represented, and copied with a closeness of measurement that I hope will always correspond with nature when brought into contact.” To create the illusion of flight, he hung birds upside down so that the wings opened.

This fact does not belittle Audubon’s contribution to art and science, which needs no re-affirmation, orthe novelty of his approach to depicting birds in their natural habitat. It is a reminder of a trivial, but often neglected, truth that the words we use today may not have had the same meaning in the past. There is a huge difference between our understanding of the expression “drawing from life” and the meaning implied by Audubon and his contemporaries. This difference is not simply the result of the language evolution. It reflects the difference in our world views, conceptual references and life styles.

“Drawing from life” also was the credo of English naturalist Mark Catesby (1682-1749), who has the honor of being the first historian of North American flora and fauna. As the majority of his colleagues, Catesby believed in the superiority of images over words in conveying scientific knowledge. In the “Prospectus for Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands” (1731-1743), he express this belief in the following way: “As FIGURES convey the strongest Ideas, and determine the Subjects treated of in Natural History, the Want of which hath caused so great Uncertainty in the Knowledge of what the ancients have described barely by words, in order to avoid such confusions, we shall take care to exhibit everything drawn by the Life.”

Catesby made several journeys to the New World: in 1712-1719, 1722; 1725 and 1726. True to his credo, he spent a lot of his energy making watercolor drawings of birds, plants, fish, insects, reptiles, amphibians and mammals. At the same time, he was busy collecting specimens of flora and fauna, since it was the specimens that paid for the expedition expenses. He diligently sent shipments to his patrons in England, among whom were such important collectors as Sir Hans Sloane, President of The Royal Society, whose collection was destined to lay the foundation of The British Museum, and eminent botanist William Sherard.

Collecting specimens and making watercolors were mutually beneficial activities for Catesby. The specimens provided models for the drawings,

Mark Catesby (1682-1749), LARGE WHITE BILLED WOODPECKER 1731, engraving on paper, hand-colored. In The Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands, Volume 1. 14 x 20 1/2 inches, Stark Museum of Art, Orange, Texas, 11.18.2.A

while the drawings better conveyed the shapes and colors of the specimens, which could suffer from deterioration during the long sea voyage.

Amodern viewer may see a contradiction between the claim that the subject was “drawn from life” and the stiff manner of its representation characteristic of drawing from a dead animal. As an example, let’s take a look at “Large White Billed Woodpecker.” The figure is flat, rigid, with its glassy button-like eye and the claws barely touching the tree trunk. One wonders if the bird has been nailed to the perch, like the parrot in Monty Python’s sketch. It is plausible to assume that this woodpecker was included in the shipment sent by Catesby to Sloan along with the following letter dated March 12, 1723: “I hope you have ere this received from Capt Rave (who sailed from hence the 10 of May last) a Box of dryed Birds, shels, and insects… I now send seven kinds of woodpecker which is all the kinds except one I have discovered in this country….”

If the artist strived to truthfully convey his own direct observations of nature, as he claimed, where is the proof of it? How can we tell that he actually watched the woodpecker in the wilderness and not simply acquired a dead specimen? Most art historians agree that Catesby’s firsthand knowledge of the subject reveals itself in the portrayal of the environmental relationships. The woodpecker