An early artist who soared above his peers

Under a Wild Sky

John James Audubon and the Making of The Birds of America

William Souder

North Point Press/Farrar, Straus & Giroux: 368 pp., $25

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In “Under a Wild Sky,” William Souder deftly weaves together the story of the self-taught artist and naturalist John James Audubon with the development of scientific inquiry in the early years of the republic and the lives of ordinary Americans as the new nation spilled westward over the mountains from the Eastern seaboard.

Souder, the author of “A Plague of Frogs,” writes in an easy style. That this lovely book is unassuming makes its content the more vivid. Its subject and center is the handsome, intrepid and stubborn Audubon. He was a man who made up many tales about himself -- he falsely claimed to have studied with the French artist Jacques-Louis David, for instance. But none was as impressive as the true story of his emergence by force of talent and will as one of America’s most original artists and most innovative naturalists.

Born in 1785 in what is now Haiti, Audubon was the product of the irregular union of a French maid and a French sea captain. His mother died young, so at 18 he went to live on his father’s estate at the confluence of the Schuylkill River and Perkiomen Creek, just west of Philadelphia.

The surrounding hills and ancient woods were alive with birds. Even naturalists and birders acquainted with the vast flocks that move north and south along the nation’s flyways can scarcely conceive of how many more birds there were in those early days.

Audubon, Souder says, spent the days wandering in a “nature-induced trance.”

It was a trance in which he would remain, happily and irresistibly, all his life.

From the very first he drew what he saw, chiefly birds. He also shot them in the careless and profligate manner of people two centuries ago who could scarcely imagine that there might someday be a dearth of them. At times, the skies were darkened as if by a solar eclipse from immense flocks of the now-extinct passenger pigeon.

Audubon shot birds to look at them more closely and to draw them more exactly -- also to eat them.

Later, after he married his neighbor Lucy Bakewell and traveled with her and their growing family down the Ohio River, then down the Mississippi River as far as Louisiana, scarcely a day went by that he didn’t return from hunting with fresh-killed meals slung over his shoulder.

Along the way he tried his hand at being a merchant, always hoping something better would soon turn up. Over time, he surrendered to his fascination with birds. He conceived the bold idea that he could draw and paint the birds of America and sell his pictures in books by subscription.

Audubon tried but failed to sell his notion in Philadelphia. He went to England and Scotland, where he and his astonishing pictures were an instant hit. He acquired the first of several publishers, launching publication of one of the greatest artistic and scientific works this continent has ever produced, “The Birds of America.”

It became four volumes containing life-size portraits of 435 species and was printed on the largest paper then available, called double elephant, nearly 30 by 40 inches. The pictures were based on his pastel and watercolor drawings and engraved in full color. When the books began to appear in the 1830s, there was no precedent for them in size, accuracy or realistic setting.

Having seen so many birds in the wild, Audubon attempted to paint them in their natural habitats, sometimes with somewhat fanciful results, such as a golden eagle clutching a new-caught hare or mockingbirds defending their nest against a prowling rattlesnake.

After years of penury, Souder writes, “The Birds of America” made Audubon comfortable, if not rich. He had become, in his own way, an American hero for the ages.