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This reminds me of John James Audubon and his seminal work, "The Birds of America." Audubon dedicated much of his life trying to paint every American bird. He
by CSMastermind 3y ago
This reminds me of John James Audubon and his seminal work, "The Birds of America."
Audubon dedicated much of his life trying to paint every American bird. He basically crowdfunded the work by getting people to pay in advance for bird prints.
"The Birds of America" is a book of 435 images, portraits of every bird then known in the United States – painted and reproduced in the size of life, with original copies being incredibly valuable collectors' items.
If you want to go down a rabbithole read up on his biography.
- oh_sigh 3y agoNeither here nor there, but I just read an article today about how a bunch of birds are being renamed, because of 'harmful' views by Audobon et al https://apnews.com/article/bird-renaming-american-ornithological-society-aee0f0b0d1cc9ae3326bc44a2d1f55e8 https://apnews.com/article/bird-renaming-american-ornitholog...
- oooyay 3y agoJohn Audubon was a slaver outside of his contributions to birding. That's why all the "Audubon Societies" are changing their names. The rest of the birds are birds named after people and the general decree is to rename all birds named after people and never name things after people again. They'll all have descriptive names now.
- oh_sigh 3y agoNeither here nor there, but my alma mater (TCNJ) renamed a building a few years ago - from "Loser Hall" to "Trenton Hall". Paul Loser was the superintendent of the Trenton school system in the early 20th century, and he was in support of segregation of black people into separate school systems. So, a reasonable renaming I think. But renaming it Trenton is itself problematic - Trenton is named after William Trent, a merchant who became one of the richest men in Philadelphia by trading, among other things, literal boatloads of slaves, which seems strictly worse than believing "merely" in segregation.
- bobthepanda 3y agoI think the most silly version is that King County in Washington, named after a pro slavery vice president, was renamed… to King County, in honor of Martin Luther King Jr.
- GauntletWizard 3y agoThat's the least silly - it cost nothing in confusion and chaos, they slowly replaced the branding, and (almost, unless you really, really hate philanderers) everyone agrees the new subject was a great man.
- bobthepanda 3y agoRight, it’s a low-effort cop out without any actual hard work.
- selimthegrim 3y agoWait until you hear about Judge Perez Drive in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana.
- kbelder 3y agoIn a nearby city, we had a 'Dead Indian Highway'. It was eventually renamed to 'Dead Indian Memorial Highway'.
- autoexec 3y ago> That's why all the "Audubon Societies" are changing their names. According to the article, the National Audubon Society is keeping their name, which I think is probably for the best. Renaming birds named after people is a good idea too, but it's nice to be able acknowledge that people can do amazing things that deserve recognition while also doing terrible things that deserve to be condemned. The blanket painting of people as either heroes or villains is childish and doesn't reflect reality or the complex nature of what it is to be human. Renaming the National Audubon Society would make about as much sense as renaming the Washington Monument. A history of slavery is something that has tainted the pasts of human civilizations all over the globe and slavery continues to be a something we all profit from even today (which is something I think we may all be judged as "evil" for). In the US it's a very large and shameful part of our history, but I think it's probably better to face that openly rather than to try and sweep that shame under the rug by erasing anyone involved.
- chottocharaii 3y agoOTOH slavery is so morally abhorrent that it far outweighs any positive contributions a person might make in their lifetime. I think its good that society condemns it in the strongest possible manner, including by renaming
- autoexec 3y agoI can understand that others won't feel the same way I do. Would you then support renaming the Washington monument? Removing any mention of his name from history books, or taking him off of our money? Should we take "Washington Crossing the Delaware" down from the walls of The Met and burn it? I don't think that the bad things someone does should cause us to pretend that the good things never happened. We should see people for who they were, the good and the bad, even if in the end there was more of one than the other. It might even be that the worse someone was, the more important it is that we shouldn't forget the good things. It helps remind us that everyone has the capacity for (and a history of) acts both good and evil and that even those who have done terrible things that could never be "made up for" (if that's ever even possible) are/were still capable of making the choice to do something wonderful.
- mannyv 3y agoNot all the audubon societies are changing. IMO it's ridiculous. Why not change the name of the Democratic parry while they're at it? They were the party of slavers.
- hooverd 3y agoWell, the Democratic party isn't named after a particular person for one.
- Rebelgecko 3y agoDemocratic is derived from the Greek "δῆμος", which was a term used to delineate free people from slaves
- mjan22640 3y agoDemos means people, while slaves in antiquity were not considered people but living tools.
- enw 3y agoIt's ridiculous. If we measured all past without nuance and with the fleeting standards of some people of today, everything would be abhorrent. I'm sad to see this way of thinking permeate so deep in our culture.
- kristopolous 3y agoIt doesn't look like any of them were comically racist and were just named after questionable people. I was hoping there'd be things so antiquated you'd have to look it up, eg: stereotypes about people from Dalmatia or Tyrol based on some scandal from 1832.
- MaxLeiter 3y agoI once (very very slightly) tore a page of one of the original copies. I’ve never seen a librarian be so speechless. The good news is my class was just learning about restoring paper and you can’t tell it ever happened. The few seconds after it happened were some of the scariest in my life though.
- SpaceNoodled 3y agoHow did you fix it?
- strombofulous 3y agoIt's not hard to repair these sorts of things with a little glue.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- IggleSniggle 3y agoThere's this cool product called invisible tape, colloquially "scotch tape" but really that's a brand name. Get it all lined up just right and nobody will know the difference!
- photonerd 3y agoThat’s… almost literally the worst tape product you could use (outside of obviously awful ideas like Duct Tape). In fact repairing use of scotch tape has its own whole section in most treatises on document restoration
- IggleSniggle 3y agoI am legitimately surprised that many people did not realize I was making a joke. I mean, priceless artifact, repaired with literally the thing people use as a metaphor for a "flimsy fix"
- fsckboy 3y agoif you want "a certain type of accuracy" in your bird paintings, dig up a copy of Roger Tory Peterson's Field Guide(s) (to birds of various regions). Rather than painting or photographing "a" bird of a species, the books feature illustrations of average/representative birds with little arrows pointing out small features which are key to identifying that species as opposed to some other. It's been a long time since I did any birding, but after getting used to the simplicity of that method, it was difficult to adapt to others that I tried.
- CobrastanJorji 3y agoIf you want the opposite type of accuracy, I recommend Matt Kracht's "Field Guide to Dumb Birds of North America" or its sequel. While it does provide reasonably accurate drawings of many birds, its focus is more on insulting that specific bird, birds in general, and birdwatchers, with the sort of venom that can only come from someone who has a great deal of love for the subject.
- civilitty 3y ago> with the sort of venom that can only come from someone who has a great deal of love for the subject. Or their neglected spouse.
- acomjean 3y ago"Oh, and birder is the word you have to use. One is a birder. If you say, 'I'm an expert bird watcher' you've automatically tipped off that you aren't a birder" From the always entertaining "how to be an impostor" article. https://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/08/magazine/how-to-be-an-imposter.html?unlocked_article_code=1.7kw.w9jo.5H7gtClDI8Iz&smid=url-share https://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/08/magazine/how-to-be-an-imp...
- ClassyJacket 3y agoI don't know if it's the same one but my uncle used to do the paintings for Field Guide To The Birds of Australia. He's very talented, and it's not just a job for him, he has always been obsessed with birds.
- ndiscover 3y agoImages from the book https://artvee.com/books/the-birds-of-america/ https://artvee.com/books/the-birds-of-america/
- randycupertino 3y agoMagpies are so gorgeous. Talk about striking plumage. The kingfisher paintings are nice too! Thank you for the link.
- sotix 3y agoI would love a low-energy digital frame on my wall that could rotate through these and the fruit paintings from TFA. Delightful works to look at that deserve more time to experience than quickly scrolling through. One image per day could last years before I would have seen each of them!
- imp0cat 3y agoThere is a TV that can do that - Samsung The Frame. And as an added bonus, it actually looks like a real painting during the day.
- pests 3y agoHuh, I doubted the "energy efficient" requirement and wow yep Art Mode only uses 30% of what its TV Mode uses.
- ZeroGravitas 3y agoI believe it can wake up based on movement sensors, which will help.
- TomK32 3y agoThrow in the bird sounds and you'll live in a very different place.
- sphars 3y ago
- fbdab103 3y agoI was curious, and a random hit[0] claims there are 750-800 different species in America. So getting ~half of the total 200 years ago feels pretty good. [0] https://www.notesfromtheroad.com/roam/how-many-birds-north-america.html https://www.notesfromtheroad.com/roam/how-many-birds-north-a...
- huytersd 3y agoIn a way, I bet an ornithologist from a tropical country would envy how someone in North America can completely wrap their hands around the couple hundred species that exist there. In the tropics you probably have 800 different species in a 100 square miles.
- fodkodrasz 3y agoThat work gets a central role in a pretty good heist movie (or something along those lines, based on a true story): American Animals. (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6212478/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6212478/)
- billfruit 3y agoDid he paint the passenger pigeon?
- CSMastermind 3y agoHe did: https://artvee.com/dl/passenger-pigeon#00 https://artvee.com/dl/passenger-pigeon#00
- aydyn 3y agoCoincidentally, all birds named after him are going to be renamed to dissociate with his legacy. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/01/science/birds-ornithology-names-audubon.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/01/science/birds-ornithology...
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]