Customer Reviews

John James Audubon: The Making of an American

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

This is truely a remarkable work. Not only does the author give us a picture of a man, most know little of, his works maybe, but not the man, but also a wonderful look at a country most of us seldom consider. Academic and popular history works tend to flit over this period of our nations history, in particular this aspect of it. In this volume we have a history of a man, a history of art and history of a new country, one which we will never see again. Per usual, Mr. Rhodes has given us a well researched, well written book, simply full of facts and points we should all ponder. Birders of today, myself included, will be and was, rather shocked at Audubon's methodology, but we must remember the times Audubon lived and be a bit open minded about it. I like to compare this work with "The Cotton Kingdom," another work that gives us great insight to early America. All this and a very nice little love story thrown in to boot. What more could we ask for? This new biography was certainly needed and I am please that a author of Mr. Rhodes' calibre decided to take the task on. Recommend you actually purchase this one as it is a book you will probably want to give a second reading down the road...I know I will. I highly recommend.

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.

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.)

As Richard Rhodes completed the chapters of this wonderful book, he would email them to me for review and comment. I am a Print collector and my own book about Audubon prints describes Audubon's paintings, the extremely valuable prints that were made from them, how they were made, how to authenticate them, where to buy them, and historical context. My comments back to Mr. Rhodes were minimal - a note on bird identification here, another on printmaking techniques there.

I actually thought I was a fairly decent writer until I reviewed Rhodes' manuscript. I knew from the first page that I was reading something special and I couldn't wait to see the final published book. Unlike me, Rhodes is a real researcher and writer (winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the American Book Award) and he chose an excellent subject. The result is the definitive Audubon biography - one that people will still be reading a hundred years from now.

If you have any one on your gift list that has brains, they will love this book and you for giving it to them. Sooner or later, someone in Hollywood will realize that it would make an excellent screenplay.

Bill Steiner, author of Audubon Art Prints - A Collector's Guide to Every Edition. University of South Carolina Press - 2003

This is an extremely well written, entertaining must read biography about an American Icon. An Icon who was, in fact, an illegitimate French man born in Haiti who came to America via France to escape the Napoleon military draft. It is, of course, interesting that today when we seem to dislike everything French that this amazing, artistic early American icon was very French. Here we experience how Audubon's personal character is developed as he transforms himself through family, his passion for birds and art into that icon of the American character. Rhodes Biography of Audubon highlights Audubon the woodsman (every bit Daniel Boone's counterpart) and the artist/naturalist who created "The Birds of America" drawings and study. Rhodes says of this accomplishment: "When he set out to create a monumental work of art with his own heart and mind and hands, he succeeded - A staggering achievement, as if one man had single-handedly financed and built an Egyptian pyramid." Rhodes points out the cost to Audubon to produce "The Birds of America" was $115,640 (in today's dollars about $2,141,000). What sets Rhodes study apart is his wonderful way of taking the reader on Audubon's life's journey and the journey of his young adoptive country, the United States. Rhodes titles his book "The making of an American" but this could easily have been the making of America. For Audubon traveled and experienced everything from failed business, a major depression, the nations largest earthquake, a major cholera epidemic, the large scale decimation of the carrier pigeons, forests, buffalo, and American Indians. He also met Presidents, the Queen while maintaining a family and marriage under incredibly difficult conditions. The heart of the biography is Audubon's relationship with his wife, Lucy and his two boys. Husband and wife were separated for many years as Audubon traveled to new business ventures, did his field studies on the side of making a living, and traveled back and forth across the Atlantic (I think I counted was at least 10 times in his lifetime). Yet Audubon and Lucy wrote letters and Audubon's writing is so modern and readable that they breathe life into the love affair of his life and Rhodes biography of the man. Also, let me congratulate the publisher Knopf, who have published a quality book which is getting rarer these days. The book is printed on excellent paper, with remarkably clear drawings inserted into the text, and several color plates of Audubon's drawings. My only complait is that they left off the Plate numbers of these drawings which would have made it easy to compare them when they are mentioned in the text. A small and minor isssue in a book I highly recommend.

In the tradition of the great biographers, Rhodes leaves no stone unturned in his exploration of this remarkable fellow. The author carries us through the journey of the quintessential self-made man as he comes into maturity with his new country, the United States.
This is a study of a man, not an ornithological treatise. We all have seen the beautiful portraits of birds (terrific color plates in the paperback edition I have) and, through Rhodes efforts, discover Audubon's ingenuity in rendering them with the sort of lifelike quality he hoped to achieve. He earned his passage on many early excursions as the boat's hunter and trapper requiring lone forays into the hinterland. He clearly absorbed everything in his environment while he was making his way. His love for wildlife extended beyond avian society to all flora and fauna contained in the natural environment. He painted other animals and plants, as well. In his waning years, he executed a series of North American mammals with his sons. He had hoped to do much more.
Audubon's history is entwined with early America. He surely enjoyed his notoriety in European courts but always longed for his wild territory. In his later years (he died a decade before the Civil War), his assessment of the burgeoning nation was that it was becoming too crowded, overpopulated; ruined. THAT America was gone before Audubon died but Mr. Rhodes allows us an almost palpable glimpse at it as he illuminates one of it's most colorful citizens. Who would be a better guide into the young U.S. than this great naturalist, so skillfully revealed by this delightful writer?

My wife and I happened upon a complete 'Birds of America' exhibit at the National Gallery last year. I was mesmerized at the loving care put into these paintings and the exquisite variety of birds in America. Who was this artist, Audubon? I had seen greeting cards with his pictures and had heard of the Audubon Society, but who was he?

Audubon was self-taught immigrant from France who went into business on the frontier and failed at it because of the fragility of the economy and all the fits-and-starts associated with a new country. His avocation was painting birds, something he did in his spare time. Finally, he decided that it was what he was best at and the most likely means of supporting his family. At great personal cost and inconvenience, he spent lots of time away from his family to document these birds, both in picture, and in observation of their habits. He became the leading naturalist in the world for birds, came to meet President Andrew Jackson, the King of England, and was feted wherever he went, after he was established. He came out of nowhere to become an international celebrity.

Richard Rhodes does a remarkable job of piecing the story together. He was able to do so in large measure because Audubon spent so much time away and had to write to keep in touch. By the way, he barely kept his family together during these absences because of frequent miscommunications back and forth, partly because English was his second language. Rhodes won the Pulitzer Prize for 'The Making of the Atom Bomb', which I also read and found superb. 'Audubon' and 'The Making of the Atom Bomb' are remarkably different in subject matter, but both are handled with the same care that Audubon put into his painting.

A side benefit of this book is the chance to explore the early U.S. by living with Audubon and his family: the people he knew, the cities he went to, and especially the wilds where he painted (which were disappearing even in the early 19th century).

He was an ardent American, and transferred his citizenship at first opportunity when he got here as a young man in the early 1800's. He loved this country, as well as the birds he painted, and it shows.

I recommend reading this book while sitting at a computer so that you can access Google images of what is being discussed. It's a truly fascinating and worthy story, and the paintings are phenomenal.

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Richard Rhodes has done it again: produced a definitive work worthy of prizes and mention as the first major biography of artist John James Audubon to appear in forty years - and the first to reveal his private and family life. Fans of the bird artist begin with Audubon's arrival in New York from France in 1803, learning about his family background and his marriage to a wellborn English girl before he journeys to frontier Kentucky to begin a new life exploring the wilderness of birds against all odds. A riveting, finely crafted survey bringing life and insight into Audubon's artistic creations, John James Audubon: The Making Of An American is an essential, core title for academic and community library American Art History collections.

Quite frankly I found this book rather inspirational. In addition to being a great artist, woodsman, and romantic, Audubon possessed the personal qualities of many great American entrepreneurs. Rhodes paints a picture of a man who blazed a trail for the conservation movement, travel and art industries we know today. Perhaps now Audubon will get the broader recognition he justly deserves as a truly great American pioneer, hopefully inspiring more than just the birdwatchers of America.