Birds in Art Through the Ages

BirdNote®
Birds in Art Through the Ages
Written by Conor Gearin

This is BirdNote.

    [Eurasian Eagle-Owl calls]

Birds were one of the earliest subjects for human artists. A cave painting in France over 30,000 years old shows the unmistakable outline of an owl. It has a large head with ear tufts that appears to be turned all the way around on the bird’s body, showcasing the range of motion an owl’s neck has. Maybe the artist was inspired by the surprising abilities of birds — much like we are at BirdNote, tens of thousands of years later.

    [Pied Kingfisher calls]

Cave drawings of birds typically showed perching or flightless birds, maybe because people could get a better look at their shapes compared to birds in the sky. Ancient Egypt was the first place where flying birds appeared consistently in artwork. Paintings on Egyptian palaces and tombs feature birds with intricately detailed flight feathers, colors, and postures, allowing researchers to identify the species thousands of years later. Clearly, these artists knew their birds.

Bird artwork has helped people reflect on the wonders of the natural world for a long, long time. It can also let us reconnect with people from long ago — through our shared fascination with birdlife.

    [Eurasian Eagle-Owl calls]

For BirdNote, I’m Michael Stein.

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Producer: Mark Bramhill
Managing Editor: Jazzi Johnson
Managing Producer: Conor Gearin
Content Director: Jonese Franklin
Bird sounds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Eurasian Eagle-Owl ML59172501 recorded by Patrik Åberg, and Pied Kingfisher ML221239 recorded by Tom Stephenson. 
BirdNote’s theme was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.
© 2024 BirdNote July 2024
Narrator: Michael Stein

ID# art-01-2024-07-30    art-01

References:
Sax, Boria. Avian Illuminations. Reaktion Books, 2021.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/pigeons-and-papyrus-at-amarna-the-birds-of-the-green-room-revisited/A4C4E5C0EDEF5B8C57FE1556BD75F798