The 9 square puzzle using a portion of the fine painting by West Indian/American artist John James Audubon. When the puzzle is complete, you will jump to a 16 square puzzle with the same image. You can go there directly by clicking the red square. Information about the artist and the painting is at the page bottom here.
NEXT  BACK  BACK TO FINE ART PUZZLE INDEX

The applet permits up to a ten square puzzle. If there is any interest in my listing a puzzle of greater difficulty, drop me a line and I'll add it in.

The image is of a painting by artist and naturalist John James Audubon (1785-1851) of the now extinct Carolina Parakeet. A magnificent looking bird as I am sure you will agree. But alas no more. And what a magnificent painting! Audubon published his epic work "Birds of America" over a number of years (1827-1838), and this was one of the many paintings included in that work - published on giant 30" by 27" pages - hence "Elephant Folio" as it is called. Another of his splendid works is featured on this site also - his fine painting of the Passenger Pigeon. You can see that work and an image of the artist himself on this page.

There is so much material available on John James Audubon that I hesitate to include much data here. But you might be interested to know that he was born in Santo Domingo, now Haiti, in 1785, the illegitimate son of Jean Audubon, a French sea captain and plantation owner and Jeanne Rabine, a French chambermaid and one of Jean Audubon's mistresses. Jeanne died soon thereafter. During his early years the artist lived in Nantes, France, with his stepmother. In 1803, he came to America in order to escape conscription into Napoleon's army. He lived in Pennsylvania initially, where he managed his father's farm and developed his skills as an artist. In 1808 he married Lucy Blakewell and they had two sons, Victor Gifford and John Woodhouse. Soon, however, he moved to Kentucky where he was quite unsuccessful as a business man and even was a taxidermist for a while. At the age of 34, he determined to paint every bird in the United States and its territories with the objective of having prints made from his paintings, to be sold on a subscription basis. He tried, in 1824, to find an engraver and publisher for his work in Philadelphia. But he upset members of the Academy of Sciences with some disparaging comments on the work of Alexander Wilson whose nine-volume set titled, American Ornithology, had been published between 1808 and 1814. That caused those Academy members to ensure that Audubon did not receive the support that he sought. In 1826 he sailed to Great Britain, where his works were well received. He gained employment in Edinburgh but turned to Robert Havell & Son, of London, to produce his major work, "The Birds of America".

That masterpiece was a four-volume elephant folio with four hundred and thirty-five coloured plates of 1,065 individual birds in life-size depictions measuring more than two by three feet, accompanied by a synopsis and index. The text to the work was published separately as a five-volume work entitled "Ornithological Biography". Written in collaboration with Scottish ornithologist, William MacGillivray, it described the life histories of each of the species with anecdotes of Audubon's adventures. This work was completed in 1839 as a companion to the elephant folio edition. Following the completion of the double elephant folio, a seven-volume octavo edition of "The Birds of America" was published and completed by 1844. The size, ten and a half by six and a half inches, was more popular and more affordable than the larger edition. Audubon's grouping of colourful, active, related birds in correct natural settings, was a major departure from the stiff renderings of unrelated birds so characteristic of the period. And he was the first to work from fresh-killed specimens collected in the field. More biographical data and other data is available here and on many other sites also. I read that fewer than 200 copies of "The Birds of America" were printed, and about half of those survive intact today.

After three years abroad, and with his name and reputation established, Audubon returned to the United States in 1829. His last major work, a series of paintings of mammals native to the North American frontier, was the fruit of a Western journey along the Missouri and Yellowstone rivers. "Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America" was published between 1845 and 1848. He eventually settled on Minnie's Land, a small estate on the Hudson River in New York and died there on January 27, 1851 at the age of sixty-six.

You may see the artists work in a great many places. A fine start point in a search would be Artcyclopedia. On this site, you can see an interactive version of the work featured on this page.

And the Carolina Parakeet (Conuropsis carolinensis)? It was the only parrot species native to the eastern United States and ranged from the Ohio Valley to the Gulf of Mexico. A member of the conure family, the bird was about 12 inches long, had a bright green body and a yellow head splashed with brilliant orange. They typically travelled in groups of up to 60 birds and as their native food vanished they flocked to farmers' orchards and fields, and rapidly destroyed the crops. A farmer would shoot one bird and the others would apparently fly around over their fallen companion instead of leaving for safety. Their colorful feathers were in demand for ladies' hats! Gradually, over time, the birds disappeared. When Audubon painted these particular Carolina Parakeets, in Louisiana in about 1825, there were few left. The last pair lived in the Cincinnati Zoo for over 30 years and the very last Carolina Parakeet of all, a male named "Incas" died there on February 21, 1918. You can see some pictures of Carolina Parakeets here.

Return to top of page.

The java applet that runs the puzzle is courtesy of Axel Fontaine, who lives or lived just south of the city of Brussels in Belgium. Axel invited free use of his fine applet which you can, I hope, download here. Axel, we thank you!