Plate 7. Purple Grakle or Common Crow Blackbird 

Curator: Let's take a look at John James Audubon’s “Plate 7. Purple Grakle or Common Crow Blackbird.” This work uses watercolor and embodies a spirit of naturalism. Editor: Immediately, I’m struck by the composition. There’s a strong vertical thrust to the corn stalks that emphasizes the relationship between the birds and their environment, also giving us a glimpse into our dependency of ecological preservation. Curator: Precisely. The linear quality is really critical. The composition directs our eye, making the two birds' forms even more legible. Notice also how the black of their plumage stands out against the greens and browns. This demonstrates his keen awareness of color contrasts in creating focus. Editor: Indeed. The seemingly simple watercolor belies its deeper implication as it illustrates this scene. Given the historical context, consider Audubon’s own complicated legacy. While he documents these birds, it's crucial to acknowledge the intersectional histories of colonization and land use impacting Black and Indigenous communities. His detailed rendering may reflect an imperial impulse to classify nature, rather than an ecological one to consider a holistic connection to landscape. Curator: While his perspective wasn't without its biases, he offers something truly exceptional about empirical study through meticulous observational illustration. I would like to challenge your post-structuralist interpretation that he reduces nature with rigid definition, and that, he actually attempts to offer natural representation, revealing beauty of the birds’ forms and colorations through light. Editor: And I might add that while light plays a central part in his naturalism, there were certain contemporary notions around environmental exploitation at the time this was published that the formalists like to sidestep. We are still in danger of the exact same type of historical repetition! Curator: Of course, each viewing elicits new discoveries. I will take away how much these birds contrast the more diffuse naturalism of their foliage. Editor: And I'm taking away the power and significance within historical artistic record! Thanks for discussing.