Nature in the arts Books

Book SynopsisFrom the mountains to the ocean shores, from the wetlands to the deserts, North America teems with flora and fauna in delicately balanced ecosystems found nowhere else on Earth. With this book in hand, you will understand the language of nature and see those wild places with new eyes. You’ll learn to recognize the lobed leaf of an Oracle Oak, the webbed tracks of a River Otter, and the fine, cream-colored tentacles of a Frilled Anemone. This volume celebrates a tradition of knowledge established by the Nature Study Guild. For more than sixty years, the Guild’s pocket guidebooks have helped hikers, campers, foragers, and explorers navigate the great outdoors. Now, the best of the guides’ informative text and iconic illustrations are gathered in one handsome hardcover: the perfect reference for today’s ramblers.

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Book Synopsis'Art is continually haunted by the animal', wrote Deleuze and Guattari. Over the past two decades, animals have quite literally invaded the gallery space, from Joseph Beuys' co-habiting with a coyote, Janis Kounelli's instillation of live horses, Damien Hirst's shark in formaldehyde to Mark Dion's natural history displays and Marco Evaristti's 'goldfish in a blender'. In this latest addition to the highly acclaimed 'Art and...' series, Giovanni Aloi surveys the insistent presence of animals in the world of contemporary art, exploring the leading concepts which inform this emerging practice. From exhibitions featuring live animals, to taxidermy, and interspecies communication, Giovanni Aloi explores how animals feature in modern art with a range of thought-provoking and innovative visual representations. Art and Animals challenges ideas of identity, 'otherness' and civilisation by explaining the role animals have occupied in our cultural development and illustrating their presence in the visual arts today.Trade Review'Giovanni Aloi articulately and sensitively unpacks the varied passionate, complex and, at times, questionable motives behind the art world's current embrace of the animal subject. He accomplishes this with erudite, and yet accessible, explanations and perceptions, all the while keeping animals themselves firmly in the reader's mind. Thinking around animals has grown exponentially in the last decade. In this time of environmental crisis the interest in the human relationship with other species has become a focal point for change. Aloi offers us, through artists' engagement with 'the animal' and animals themselves, a mirror in which to see our own struggles with our relationships with the non-human world.' - Carol Gigliotti, Associate Professor, Dynamic Media and Critical and Cultural Studies, Emily Carr University and Editor, Leonardo's Choice: Genetic technologies and animals; 'Jacob von Uexkull once called on biologists, ecologists, and philosophers to take a stroll through the worlds of animals and men and challenged us to see the world through other than human eyes. Contemporary art has taken up Uexkull's call and now challenges us to do the same. Giovanni Aloi leads us on a stroll through the truly stunning world of animal art. Among the menagerie, readers will find themselves immersed in pickled sharks, genetically altered bunnies, taxidermied polar bears and pets re-imagined. It is some comfort to have this book as a companion in approaching such a multivalent field. In Art and Animals Aloi brings to bear his wealth of experience as editor of Antennae: Journal of Nature in Visual Culture. He proves an adept guide in giving his readers ways of framing and re-framing the burgeoning world of animal art without ever feeling that his mastery cheats the richness of the field.' - Ron Broglio, Assistant Professor, Arizona State UniversityTable of ContentsIntroduction The Return of a Victorian Obsession: Taxidermy Live Animals in the Gallery Space The Death of the Animal Becoming Animal Animals and Climate Change

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Book SynopsisThe celebrated and highly valued natural history classic, now fully reproduced for the 1st time with an introduction by world-renowned ornithologist David Allen SibleyFeaturing 435 stunning images of Audubon’s original watercolors, this is the perfect addition to any bird lover’s libraryFirst published in installments between 1827 and 1838, John James Audubon’s treasured collection of life-sized watercolors of North American birds is the standard against which all wildlife illustration is measured.With fewer than 120 surviving copies in museums and private collections, this volume was created in conjunction with the Natural History Museum in London which disbound 1 of their 2 original editions in the process for the first time. This stunning nearly 500 page, 8x12 reissue contains: 435 exquisite reproductions of hand-colored prints of the original watercolors Detailed descriptions of American birds and their natural habitats, organized alphabetically from the avocet grazing in a tidal pond to the zenaida dove perched on a flowering branch Expertly researched by an avid outdoorsman and explorer, the stunning illustrations are based on Audubon’s specimen collections from Florida to Labrador to Texas and the Dakotas Straddling the line between science and art, this book mesmerized 19th-century audiences around the world. Today it stands as a reminder of the spectacular biodiversity of the North American continent, and of the pioneer spirit that Audubon himself revered.

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