A MONA Moment "Thus begins the
journal on October 12, 1820, of one of the epic, perhaps the epic achievement
of American Art in the 19" Century: The ten year journey of John James Audubon
to create and publish the Havell edition of the Birds of America, 435 hand painted
aquatint engravings on sheet measuring 26 by 39 inches. The largest printing
project yet produced to that time. It is one of the unsurpassed achievements
in American Art. Imagine the risk. At 35 he was an unproven artist, was married
and the father of two, had failed miserably at every business venture he had
attempted. Artist, explorer, adventurer, entrepreneur, romantic, family man,
ornithologist wannabe-he was all of these things, but most of all he was driven
with an appetite for huge, larger than life projects. Even today, the massive
scope of the Birds of America-The Havell and the later Royal Octavo edition
remain impressive by any standard."
Audubon was one
of America's first savvy marketers. We would like to feel the Royal Octavo was
designed to provide a modestly priced version of the Birds of America for the
American of average means. To an extent it was. But it was also a way for Audubon
to cash in on the success and notoriety of the Havell edition. But unlike our
20,h Century sequels, with Audubon, an insistence on the highest quality of
work informs the smaller but exquisite Royal Octavo. And, you got more for your
money. The Royal Octavo included 65 more prints than the Havell edition-a total
of 500 hand colored lithographs, reproduced in the royal octavo paper size,
approximately 10 3/4 x 7 inches. Like the larger Havell edition, the octavo
would be sold by subscription, one hundred installments or, as they were referred
to, numbers, five prints to a number, each number costing a dollar distributed
by Audubon's sales agents on the first and fifteenth of the month. When you
look at one of these prints, there is a number on the top left margin of the
print, that is the "number" the number of the set of five in the subscription
series. The number at the upper right comer of the print is the number assigned
to the individual plate. There were 100 numbers, and 500 plates. Today, the
five prints from an average number can average a value of $1,000.
And the production
of the prints was a team effort, and to some extent, a family affair. Most of
the original art work for the plates was taken directly from the original, life-size
Havell prints. But there was a problem. How to reduce the large size of the
Havell edition prints to the smaller Octavo size. Audubon's son, John Woodhouse
Audubon reduced the size through the use of the camera lucida, a glass prism
held at eye level by a rod over the drawing paper, where the artists could see
both the object to be drawn and the paper, and would trace the image to the
correct reduced size. John then sent the completed outlines to the printer his
father chose to produce the hand-colored lithographs, John T. Bowen of Philadelphia.
Audubon chose a
relatively new printing process-lithography-as his medium of choice. The great
advantage of this new technology over traditional, older, etching or engraving
techniques. The image was drawn by the artist directly on a special, flat stone,
and printed on the paper a from the image on the stone. without the need of
an intervening engraver and his specialized skills. The process is somewhat
complex, but suffice it to say, its chief advantage was that that it removed
the engraver middleman.
Bowen's own artist
then transferred the outline drawing to the stone by tracing over it with a
red or brown pencil, then placing it face down on the stone rubbing the back
of the paper, offsetting the drawing to the stone. He would then add details
to the drawing now directly on the stone. Often the original watercolor by Audubon
was at hand so the artist could imitate Audubon's fluid strokes.
One of Bowen's
artists who apparently was favored by Audubon, Robert Trembly, did many of the
drawings on the stone. He evidently took pride in his work. Bowen permitted
to put his initials on the prints he drew, thus you often find an "RT" discreetly
printed just below the center of the image.
The final step
was hand coloring the hundreds of prints. In a printing operation like Bowen's,
there were teams of colorists, usually women, and each assigned to fill in one
color of the print only. They would typically be sitting at long tables, with
a colored proof copy of the print that Audubon or his son Victor had approved,
or sometimes of the Havell prints or Audubon's original watercolors sitting
in the center of the table. Assembly line style, the print would be passed to
the next colorist, which would apply a different color. Finally, a finisher
would add highlights or necessary touchups.
Though the Royal
Octavo was the combined work of many people, numbers did not cheapen its quality,
it is perhaps the most successful artistic collaboration in American history.
Audubon's vision and insistence on quality resulted in one of the most beautiful
books ever produced in America-a great work of art.
John James Audubon and the Royal Octavo
By Ron Roth
Director
Museum of Nebraska Art
