Plate 8: Bearded Vulture with Two Birds of Prey c. 1575 - 1580

Editor: Here we have Joris Hoefnagel's "Plate 8: Bearded Vulture with Two Birds of Prey", made around 1575 to 1580, using watercolor and drawing techniques. It's…well, it's different. All the birds, perched so delicately on these bare branches, it's almost like a macabre ornithological still life, or something equally oxymoronic! What is your initial impression? Curator: A "macabre ornithological still life"--I adore that. My mind’s taken by the stark realism paired with the almost fairytale-like quality that the perfectly round frame and precise rendering gives the composition. Do you get a sense that it is like a medieval bestiary, where naturalism mingles with allegory? It's the age of exploration, and the minute observation of nature starts blooming! The way he captures each feather, the glint in their eyes... it’s an exercise in meticulous detail. Yet there's that touch of Mannerist flair in the slightly exaggerated forms, you think? Editor: Exaggerated how? It all seems pretty spot-on, anatomically. Curator: Not so much anatomically off, perhaps, but in the overall affectation. Note how they seem consciously staged? More like actors than birds surprised in nature. It could speak to the role of observation versus the impulse for arrangement in Renaissance scientific illustration. It also hints at broader ideas about power and survival, with the vulture possibly representing divine judgment...but that's a thought for another time. Editor: Actors... I get that! The bird on the left *is* rather theatrical. Well, this has really shifted my view of scientific illustration as dry and factual; I see it now as an art form! Curator: Precisely! It is this slippage between observation, art, and symbol that gives the image its real bite, no?