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Bird Studies with a Camera by Frank M. Chapman The book is an early “textbook” of photographing birds by Frank M. Chapman, an assistant curator of vertebrate zoology in the American Museum of Natural History, published in 1903. Chapman’s book is for a scientific pursuit. He refers bird photographing as a sport and the highest form of hunting, lens to replace guns, for the love and the true spirit of sportsmanship. The cameras Chapman uses and teaches his readers to use are rather antique and technically limited from a modern standpoint. But the images of birds Chapman captured are pioneering. This is also a journal of Chapman’s visits to many bird species, a diary of where and how he approached the birds.
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Studies in the Art Anatomy of Animals: Being a Brief Analysis of the Visible Forms of the More Familiar Mammals and Birds by Ernest Thompson Seton The book is an advocation of animal anatomy by the 19th-century wildlife artist Ernest Thompson Seton. He puts forth the idea that artists should learn the anatomical knowledge of animals with an equal attention of studying human anatomy, to treat animal subjects as humans with the physical accuracy in the sphere of art. For Seton, the dissection is not equivalent but an inferior method to the study of anatomy, while the anatomy delivers a more vivid rendering of animals. Birds anatomy is one of the topics in the book. Seton gives a particular attention to the depiction of features.
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Jieziyuan huaji 《芥子园画谱》 Jieziyuan is an art textbook co-authored by multiple artists in the era of Kangxi (1662-1722), a classical publication represents the sophistication of the color woodblock printing technique in the early Qing dynasty. The word “huapu,” directly translated as the “painting note,” “painting excerption” or "painting book," refers to a systematic recording of art techniques with illustrations. Jieziyuan, as the most known and representative Chinese huapu, offers a series of detailed procedures of drawing landscape, still-life and animals. The section of birds illustrates the rendering of birds in steps and how to depict birds in different postures and various natural environments.
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Birds of Asia by John Gould 1853 British ornithologist John Gould composed this large edition of Birds of Asia in the mid-19th century, an unfinished work at his death. The work is an accumulative intellectual piece. Gould’s illustrations are based on journals of numerous ornithologists travelling to Asia and accessible specimens. He includes detailed descriptions of birds with direct quotations and casts a special attention to paint the background as the depicted birds’ local environment.
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Xiyu wen jian lu: ba juan by Qishiyi 《西域聞見錄：八卷》 七十一 著 Under the reign of emperors Kangxi and Qianlong (1661-1796), troops of the Qing dynasty conquered the Western Regions (the ancient name of the west part of modern China and some nearby regions). To enforce his governance, Emperor Qianlong sent scholars to participate in local constructions. A new type of travel journals recording the unique landscape and cultures the scholars viewed on their way to the Western Regions emerged and populated. This journal was finished in 1777, written by one of the scholars travelled to the Western Regions under the pen name “Qishiyi” (translated as "Seventy-one").
In this travel journal, Qishyi records his encounters with several birds, including the snowcock and eagle habituated in the mountain regions. He might have eaten some of the birds—he mentioned a kind of chicken, which he called “tree chicken-raven,” that is “許味甚美(xu wei shen mei)” (tasted very good).
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The Birds of America by John James Audubon The American artist and naturalist John James Audubon depicted birds across America. His masterpiece The Birds of America was printed in early the 19th century. Audubon drew birds from life and the specimen, and he kept volumes of diaries recording his encounters with birds. For art and collection purpose, he shot the birds for take-home study and cooked his prey and subjects afterward, an ethic questioned. The paintings are fully colored, life-size. To fit into the page, a large-size bird has to bend itself into an unnatural posture. In addition to its artistic value, this collection shares great scientific importance—several birds joyfully living in Audubon’s paintings are now extinct species. More than an art piece, Audubon’s The Birds of America is a visual documentation.
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Niaopu (after Jiang Tingxi) by Zhang Weibang and Yu Sheng《仿蒋廷锡鸟谱》 张为邦 余省 绘 Jiang Tingxi was an earlier court artist to Zhang Weibang and Yu Sheng, an expert of fine-brush Huamiao hua. The Chinese art genre Huamiao hua (花鸟画), “flower-and-bird paintings,” generalizes paintings of flowers, birds, fish and insects. Jiang’s subjects were rendered in a bright palette, and with a delicate depiction of shadow and some hints of linera perspective. The sense of three-dimensionality in his works was from his study after western missionaries he encountered in the court. Niaopu, “book of birds,” was a popular book type for collection in the Qing court. Niaopu (after Jiang Tingxi) is a royal commission by Emperor Qianlong (1711-1799). Court artists Zhang Weibang and Yu Sheng facsimiled Jiang’s Niaopu into this book. Jiang’s original Niaopu contained 360 paintings but was unfortunately lost. Zhang and Yu’s facsimile was selective with an introduction of several new species, keeping a total number of 360 paintings. Each bird occupies two pages. On the recto depicted the bird in the fine-brush technique; on the verso, Emperor Qianlong commissioned his scholars to annotate the name, features, habits and characteristics, and quotations of the bird in classic texts like Shijing in both Mandarin and Manchu.
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Shotaika kacho gafu by Fukuai Gessai 《諸大家花鳥画譜》 福井月齋 编 Kachoga (花鳥画) is Japanese import and adaption of Chinese Huaniao hua. It enjoys a great similarity in its subject matters and artistic approach with Chinese Huaniao hua. This woodblock printed book is a collection of Kachogo from numerous Janpanese artists, names not mentioned, edited by Fukuai Gessai (福井月齋). Species of birds included in the book are typical subjects in Kachoga, like phenix, peacock and crane, rendered in an expressive use of ink.