How the Scottish capital helped inspire a force of nature

“IN DEALING with Audubon,” proclaimed the art critic Robert Hughes in his television series American Visions, “one must realise, right off, that he was not a nice guy. He was self-inflated, paranoid, and a bit of a thug.” He goes on to say that “Audubon’s gamble on England [Scotland unmentioned] paid off”, referring to the French-born American’s bold 1826 initiative, when he came to Britain to find a publisher and subscribers (180 guineas for three, eventually four, volumes, payable five prints at a time over eight, eventually 12) years, for his giant, double-elephant folio, paintings of The Birds of America.

His ultimate destination was Edinburgh, then probably the foremost intellectual centre in the world, not least in the study of natural history. Edinburgh was where he hoped to meet his hero Sir Walter Scott and it was there he found his first publisher, William Lizars, for the book that is today worth more than £7 million, the most expensive in the world.

How crucial Audubon’s time in Edinburgh was to his career and the publication of his famous work is revealed in the journal he kept. It is addressed to his wife Lucy and their children in faraway Philadelphia (her August letters only arrived in December). The unabridged text (including some of his letters) has now been published, for the first time, by the University of Nebraska.

John James Audubon (1785-1851) embarked at New Orleans for Liverpool on 26 April, his 41st birthday, carrying among his luggage 250 of his life-size “watter coloured Drawings” and some letters of introduction. He made no concessions to fashionable convention, presenting himself as the “man of the woods” he was: “flowing locks” slicked with bear grease; a fringed buckskin jacket; and wolfskin greatcoat. The extent of his gamble cannot be underestimated. Only seven years before he had been imprisoned for debt. It was after this humiliation that he followed his true calling as a bird artist, the bills paid by portrait commissions and Lucy’s salary as a teacher.

In England he had to pretend to be a gentleman artist-naturalist for whom money was no concern; a persona tested when Liverpool’s Royal Institution held an exhibition of his paintings within ten days of his arrival. Gentlemen did not charge admission. He did and, for the first time, began to make money from his birds. But despite his success in Liverpool and Manchester, his highest hopes were reserved for Edinburgh. So excited was he at finally crossing the Border into “Scott-land” he noted the exact time, 10:10am, 25 October. The coach reached the capital at 11pm, the journey having afforded among other sights that of shepherds “wrap’d in a thin piece of Plaid”, disappointingly unlike the “noble race so well painted by Walter Scott”.

Audubon arrived in Edinburgh still in search of a publisher. The “splendid city” immediately impressed him, not least its “wonderful cleanliness” after “Dirty Manchester”; and having taken a handsome set of rooms at 2 George Street he eagerly went calling. After three fruitless days, during which he tramped as far as Leith, noting how similar the working women were, both in gait and the way they carried baskets strapped to their heads, to the “Indian Squaws of the West”, he thought of giving up and going to London.

The breakthrough came on the 30th. After another wasted morning he stormed into the printer Patrick Neill’s office “as if the World was about being convulsed”. Neill calmed him down and took him to meet William Lizars, the famed engraver. One of Lizars current projects was the Illustrations of British Ornithology by Prideaux John Selby. He lavished praise on Selby as he accompanied the silent Audubon back to George Street to see the folio. “I slowly unbuckled the straps, and putting a chair for him to set, without uttering a Word, I turned up a Drawing! – Now, Lucy, poor Mr Selby was the suferer [sic] by that movement – Mr Lizars, quite surprised, exclaimed, ‘My God, I never saw anything like this before’.” Friendship was instant and three days later Lizars committed himself to publish the great work.

Audubon’s conquest of “the most beautiful, Picturesque & romantic City probably in the World” now began. He was granted an exhibition gratis at the Royal Institution, which drew the paying crowds and received a glowing review in the internationally renowned Edinburgh Review. He was elected by acclamation to the Society of Arts and Sciences and rules were waived to make him an honorary member of the super-select Wernerian [Natural History] Society. He quickly surpassed his goal of securing ten Scottish subscribers, among them Edinburgh University and the Royal Academy; and he was lionised day and night. “The sumptuous Dinners of this Country are quite too much for me,” he complained, and no wonder, with “Scotch Messes” of “Marrow Bones – Cod fishes heads stuffed with Oat Meal and Garlick – Black Puddings – Sheeps Heads”; and that only a starter. He rarely got to bed before midnight or afforded himself more than four hours sleep; and in due course he became quite “sickened” by praise. In his journal he confides to Lucy: “I prefer more solitude in the Woods by thy side – or at Home by the fireside or in by thy Bosoms side. Such are the Treats for me.” As for Robert Hughes’ character assassination, Audubon confronted with a boy beggar, “bear footed, ragged and apparently on the eve of starvation”, not only gave him money but took him home and gave him “an honest parcel” of all the clothes in his trunk.

The journal is written “fresh from the active mind” and its account is as lively as this suggests. It shows Audubon supremely confident of his ability, any lack of science more than compensated by his unrivalled experience. “I think that if my work deserves the attention of the Public, it will stand on its own legs as firm as if joined to those of men who are no doubt far my superiors in point of education and literary acquirements, but not so in the actual course of observations of Nature at her Best – in her Wilds! – as I positively have done.” This is the brilliance of his art. It comes from life – he had, it was noted, abnormally sharp eyesight – and freshly killed specimens wired to look alive, not from the customary skins or stuffed birds.

Nor did he have any doubt of the historical significance of his monumental project, the recording of every bird species in North America. “Hundred[s] of times have I said quite Loud in the [American] Woods…Oh, Walter Scott, where art thou? Wilt thou not come to my Country? Wrestle with Mankind and stop their Increasing ravage on Nature and describe her Now for the sake of Future Ages…Without thee, Walter Scott, unknown to the world she must die.”

In the event, it is the Birds of America which serves this remarkably prescient need, some of its subjects now extinct. The journal ends with Hogmanay. Following another dinner he was about to go to bed when his landlady insisted he “take some Toddy” with her and another lodger, also an American. Afterwards “the Noise so Increased in the streets and lasted with such confusion until morning that I never closed my Eyes a moment”.

The one person he had failed to meet was Scott. But from Scott’s journal we learn that this was finally achieved the following year, Scott having contrarily avoided him before. “I wish I had gone to see his drawings. But I had heard so much about that I resolved not to see them – a crazy way of mine, your honour!” He liked Audubon: “He preferred associating with the Indians to the company of the Back Settlers, very justly I daresay.” As for the paintings he was particularly struck by one of mocking-birds, “a snake attacking a bird’s nest while the birds [the parents] peck at the reptile’s eyes – They usually in the long run destroy him says the naturalist”. Overall he found Audubon’s insistence on “extreme correctness” gave “a stiffness to the drawings”, when clearly the opposite is true.

Engraver William Lizars was the first to preserve this for the ages, although sadly, when his colourers went on strike for better pay in 1827, Audubon was forced to employ Robert Havell in London. Lizars ten opening plates are nonetheless considered of superior quality to Havell’s, the four volumes eventually containing 435.

HOW AUDUBON’S ART TOOK OFF

AUDUBON was born in the French colony of Santo Domingo (now Haiti) in 1785, the son of Captain Jean Audubon, a French sailor and adventurer, and one of his mistresses, Jeanne Rabine, a French chambermaid, who died six months later. Raised by his father, young Audubon learned to love nature, and began to draw.

When he was 18 years old, to escape conscription into Napoleon’ Bonaparte’s army, Audubon fled to Pennsylvania, America. While there he met his future wife Lucy Bakewell. They later had two sons and a daughter (the latter of which died in infancy). Audubon enjoyed a decade of success in business after starting his own dry-food store, but hard times hit and he was jailed briefly for bankruptcy.

With no prospects, Audubon set off on his epic quest to depict America’s bird life, with nothing but his gun, artist’s materials, and a young assistant. Floating down the Mississippi river, living a hand-to-mouth existence, he worked at turning his passion into a profession.

In 1826, with his partly finished collection, Audubon left his family and sailed to Britain with hopes of finding a publisher. His life-size, dramatic bird portraits, along with his embellished descriptions of wilderness life hit the right note with the British public and Audubon found a printer. Birds of America was first published in Edinburgh, then London, and later he collaborated with the Scottish ornithologist William MacGillivray on the life histories of each of the species in his work.

The last print was issued in 1838, by which time Audubon had achieved fame. He travelled America several more times in search of birds and settled in New York where he died at the age of 65 in 1851.