Tenacious of Life: The Quadruped Essays of John James Audubon and John Bachman (University of Nebraska Press), edited by Daniel Patterson and Eric Russell
“Reader, let us carry you with us to the boundless plains over which the prong-horn speeds.” So begins one of the essays by artist John James Audubon and naturalist John Bachman. Audubon is best known for his painstaking depictions of North American birds, but with that project behind him, moved on to the continent’s four-legged beasts in his book with Bachman, The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America.
Their collaboration was a milestone in zoology for identifying and describing species native to America through the eyes of art and science. Written in the 1840s, Viviparous Quadrupeds expresses concern over the fate of species already in danger of disappearing under the advance of an unheeding, rapidly expanding civilization.
The commentary by editors Daniel Patterson and Eric Russell puts Audubon-Bachman in context and explores their fraught relationship. Audubon drank heavily, washing away the memory of his ill-tempered outbursts. By the end, the artist fell to dementia. “Alas, my poor friend Audubon!” Bachman exclaimed. “The outlines of his countenance and his form are there, but his noble mind is all in ruins.”
