Birds in art: nature meets culture

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Hugh McGlyn explores an unusual – and 'hugely enjoyable' exhibition in Norwich

‘The Wonder of Birds’ is a hugely enjoyable exhibition. It is subtitled ‘Nature–Art–Culture’ but the serious exploration of its rich subject makes for a visual treat with many surprises.

In Section One: What is a Bird? the eye is immediately caught by an exquisite lustreware ceramic hawk (Sanlucid, Near East c.12 AD) , encased deep in a thick wall at the top of which is a taxidermy Condor. Among slightly worthy-seeming items such as a cast of the bird-like dinosaur Aereoptyrx and an outsize elephant bird egg, there are meticulous drawings and watercolours (including a Mantegna),  bird specimens; and a wonderful Hans Holbein  oil painting.

The Holbein,A Lady with Starling and Squirrel (1526–8) is graphically strong, with the starling on a branch punctuating the intense blue background and contrasting with its subject’s headdress and shawl. The squirrel on a little chain, less strongly defined, balances the composition. It is Holbein’s only portrait where sitter has both a bird and a mammal as attributes. The two are both naturalistically treated but also have important symbolic meanings. This combination is interesting as closely observed naturalism and symbolic treatments of bird subjects are contrasting approaches in the works on exhibition.

A Lady with Starling and Squirrelalso humorously underlines another feature of the exhibition. Many of the avian subjects depicted by artists in paintings have a ‘doppelganger’ close by. The tops of the temporary walls that partition the gallery’s two rooms into the exhibition’s six sections create a display area along which a parade of bird taxidermies is arranged. Holbein’s starling and squirrel are the odd couple, the squirrel being the only mammal included.

This high-level display works spectacularly with large species. Section 2: ‘Predators and Prey’ features a chorus line of eagles and other raptors. The art work, too, is dramatic.  It includes a group of owl photographs by Eric Hoskings who, in the mid -20th century, innovated lighting techniques to capture birds in flight. Heraldic Barn Owl (1948) is a classic.

Two oil paintings , Hawks Pouncing on Partridges by John James Audubon  (1785–1851) and  A Roller: Two Peregrine Falcons and an Owl with its Young by Francis Barlow (1625–1702) illustrate developments in ornithological art. Audubon is generally better known for his bookplate prints for the celebrated publication Birds of America. Barlow, England’s first natural history painter, was also widely known for illustration. But whereas Audubon only drew from the actual bird (sometimes including recently killed ones) and only depicted as groups those found together in the natural habitat, Barlow’s shows he used taxidermies to paint from and the species in the painting would not all have been found together.

Pieter Holsteyn’s White Dodo was also copied from a taxidermy example. These are both from the later 17th century: around the time the dodo is believed to have become extinct.

The earliest actual taxidermy on display is a partridge dating from 1790. Taxidermies are not only featured as a key to their painted counterparts: they are also exhibits proper. Individual birds and arrangements are interspersed with the art and other artefacts.

The curators have carefully chosen individual and composite pieces from Norwich’s Natural History collection, effectively providing a brief history of taxidermy dotted around the exhibition sections. Much taxidermy was educational in purpose. Scientifically presented museum specimens and arrangements informed by the same principles of wider ornithological art – to present nature accurately. But there was also a vogue for excessive ornamental groups. A grandiose example of these popular Victorian ornaments is seen in Lord Hasting’s elaborate gold-edged, arched case containing over 160 randomly sourced South American hummingbirds. We are told that other grand projects exist of up to 300 birds.

Assembled in the 19th century, gifted to Norwich in 1891 and newly restored for the show, Hasting’s hummingbirds are a dazzling if poignant part of ‘Introducing the Exotic’. This section also has examples of hats and accessories that used large quantities of feathers many from wild birds. This trade, at its height in late 19th century Britain, prompted a backlash.  A Symbolist-inspired oil by G.F Watts (1817–1904),   A Dedication… to those who mourn the senseless and cruel destruction of beauty, was originally exhibited in the 1890s as a rallying cry against the trade.

Out of this movement the RSPB emerged. Norfolk-based Robert Gilmor (b.1936), designer of the RSPB’s present avocet logo, is represented with a characteristic linocut: Avocet and Chicks.

The final section, ‘The Realms of the Spirit’ features birds as symbols of transcendence. It includes a Picasso 1949 Dove lithograph: another rallying cry, this time to ‘Peace’. Beautifully positioned adjacent to this is A Murmuration of Starlings, David Tipling’s 2012 photograph in which a flock of starlings seem to describe a single bird shape.

Overall, the show is hugely enjoyable. The six section titles are imaginative but the sections themselves merge so you have to look closely to see where each ends. Many works could be claimed with equal validity for a different section. Hitckcock’s  film poster for The Birds, for example, is in ‘Seabirds and Migrants’ but could easily fit with the surrealists in ‘Realms of the Spirit’, or even ‘What is a Bird?’. Alternative section headings could have been used to underline other aspects of the culture on display: perhaps  ‘Birds in Print’, book illustration being prominent throughout. Or ‘Ornithological Art v. Painting Birds’? Ornithological art, which developed out of scientific illustration, is arguably undervalued: often seen as not belonging in the contemporary art world. But such art would be more dryly academic than that chosen: the show is called ‘The Wonder of Birds’ and lives up to the title.