Yellow Shank Tatien, from the Game Birds series (N13) for Allen & Ginter Cigarettes Brands 1889

This small chromolithograph of a "Yellow Shank Tatien" is part of Allen & Ginter's "Game Birds" series. The bird dominates the frame, centered with a horizon line just beneath its belly, creating a balanced composition. The rendering is highly stylized. Short, repetitive strokes form the bird's plumage, contrasting with the smoother sky and ground, thereby segmenting the composition through texture. This use of micro-patterns lends a decorative, almost abstract quality to the bird’s form. The design is further abstracted by the broad, flat colour and by the geometric shapes used to frame the bird. By fragmenting the scene with texture and geometric forms, the print reduces nature to a series of signs. The print becomes an exercise in semiotics, where each element contributes to a larger symbolic language that reflects the shift towards abstract modes of representation.