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8 FABULOUS
BIRDS In the last decades of
the nineteenth century, bird art developed an overt empathy with native creatures,
moving from the contained naturalism of scientific illustration to art for art's
sake. From this time, artists actively explored the emotive and symbolic values
of the natural world. Lacking the powerful history and knowledge of Aboriginal
art, this Australian art nevertheless asserts new emotional bonds. Alien,
gravely threatened, diminishing, birds yet proclaim their air and lands. They
sing, converse, mimic. They gather and build. Free from the constraints of gravity,
they circle the world on their extraordinary migrations. Their lives seem numinous,
fabulous.
For all the revelatory power
of our two great traditions of bird art, Aboriginal and
European, the lives of birds remain mysterious. Nothing
we make of themceremonial
artefact, ornament, trophy, picture, story, exhibitionholds
them.
Our lists and poems name them
and never finally name them.
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