The Ivory–Billed Woodpecker (Picus Principalis, Linn.), Volume 1, Plate 66

Painted ca. 1825–26.

Audubon in this plate is at the height of his compositional powers, offering a consciously virtuosic rewriting of the basic bird-on-branch paradigm of ornithological illustration, placing his three birds (a male with his lustrous carmine crest) and two females on a lichen-covered dead tree-a powerfully balletic image that is further animated by the focus (in the upper half of the composition) on the small beetle that is about to be eaten. Notice how Audubon presents the birds from different viewpoints, arranged around the traditional compositional center, which he as left empty. The inverted triangle or V-shape formed by the two branches of the tree reappears in many forms throughout the picture (the birds’ beaks, the bodies of the male and the female at the bottom; the primaries of the male and lower female; the shapes made by the smaller branches attached to the larger branch on the left). Audubon seems to have selected the dead tree so that he could highlight the color of the male’s crest, a subtle way of reinforcing his choice of a nickname for the bird, as it is explained in the accompanying essay-“Vandyke” (it is possible that he was thinking of the brilliant red silk shirt worn by Van Dyck in his famous Self-Portrait with a Sunflower, 1630). Due to massive habitat loss, the Ivorybill is presumed extinct today, despite recent unconfirmed sightings.

From John James Audubon’s Ornithological Biography

I have always imagined, that in the plumage of the beautiful Ivory-billed Woodpecker, there is something very closely allied to the style of colouring of the great VANDYKE. The broad extent of its dark glossy body and tail, the large and well-defined white markings of its wings, neck, and bill, relieved by the rich carmine of the pendent crest of the male, and the brilliant yellow of its eye, have never failed to remind me of some of the boldest and noblest productions of that inimitable artist’s pencil. So strongly indeed have these thoughts become ingrafted in my mind, as I gradually obtained a more intimate acquaintance with the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, that whenever I have observed one of these birds flying from one tree to another, I have mentally exclaimed, “There goes a Vandyke!”…. The flight of this bird is graceful in the extreme, although seldom prolonged to more than a few hundred yards at a time, unless when it has to cross a large river, which it does in deep undulations, opening its wings at first to their full extent, and nearly closing them to renew the propelling impulse. The transit from one tree to another, even should the distance be as much as a hundred yards, is performed by a single sweep, and the bird appears as if merely swinging itself from the top of the one tree to that of the other, forming an elegantly curved line. At this moment all the beauty of the plumage is exhibited, and strikes the beholder with pleasure. It never utters any sound whilst on wing, unless during the love season; but at all other times, no sooner has this bird alighted than its remarkable voice is heard, at almost every leap which it makes, whilst ascending against the upper parts of the trunk of a tree, or its highest branches. Its notes are clear, loud, and yet rather plaintive. They are heard at a considerable distance, perhaps half a mile, and resemble the false high note of a clarionet. They are usually repeated three times in succession, and may be represented by the monosyllable pait, pait, pait.