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Many of the museum's bird related dioramas showcase phenomenal examples of taxidermy
and mural painting produced by Museum artists. When you see their work up close, you realize
that these artists were a unique blend of naturalist and artist. In order to duplicate
nature that well, you have to be totally immersed in it. And understand bird anatomy, landscape
painting, sculpting and the behavior of the birds. The dioramas that they produced a re
really remarkable assemblages of natural history. One of the first artists to paint background
murals at the Museum was Luis Agassiz Fuertes. In the early 1900s, Fuertes developed a close,
friendly relationship with ornithologist Frank Chapman. And Chapman preferred bringing Fuertes
with him on expeditions because, as there was no color photography, Fuertes could capture
accurately the colors of the birds soft parts like eyes, feet, and fleshy tissue, before
it faded quickly after being collected. Chapman referred to Fuertes as a bird portraitist,
because he captured not just the essence of the species, but captured the likeness of
that exact individual bird that he was rendering from life. Frances Lee Jaques was a remarkable
naturalist artist. Jaques was thought to be the best bird artist of his time in painting
birds in flight. His ability to paint birds in flight is remarkable for the time in which
he worked, which predates sophisticated wildlife photography and film speeds required to really
stop birds in mid-flight. So it was just his extensive experience in the field that allowed
him to paint that behavior. The American Museum displays some of the finest bird taxidermy
anywhere in the world. Bird Taxidermy is quite a bit different from the mammal work that
you see in the dioramas. It usually requires a specialized individual who focuses on birds
for their entire career. This diorama, the bald eagle diorama, is a wonderful example
of the craft of taxidermy. I started work at the Museum in 1974, and I was assigned
to apprentice with the then staff taxidermist David Schwendeman, who was a master taxidermist
at birds. And the eagles in this exhibit are his work. The young bald eagle is especially
dramatic in that it is featured posed as it's coming in for a landing. David Schwendeman
used a steel armature that is anchored into the mannequin of the bird and that steel support
follows behind one of those flight feathers, so you cannot see it. And that steel support
is what holds the bird up in that position in flight, giving it the sense that it's suspended
in mid-air. Taxidermy in the habitat groups, when the birds are posed in flight, gives
us a wonderful opportunity to study the principles of flight. When you look at these exhibits
and the specimens, you accept them for nature and accept them for the reality that they
seek to achieve, not realizing that they're illusion, and that there are artists that
create that illusion.