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'So
that the air ... should be populous
with vocal and musical creatures.'
Giacomo
Leopardi (17981837)
From James Thomson (trans.) and Bertram Dobell
(ed.), Essays, Dialogues and Thoughts (Operette
Morali and Pensieri) of Giacomo Leopardi, London:
George Routledge, [18-].
Birds-the
only creatures of our earth with the gifts of both
flight and song-were flying and singing across the
great southern continent (only recently called Australia)
for millions of years before humans heard them. Potent
symbols of the natural world, their flight and endurance
also make them symbols of the human spirit. Their
lives seem to us numinous and eternal, but they are
dangerously threatened by our activities.
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This
exhibition is about birds that fly and sing in the
Australian imagination. Its images may vividly remind
us of the birds that live in the world around us,
but they also trace our changing attitudes to birds
and our practical, scientific and artistic uses of
birds. Even ornithological illustration is only illustration.
While it reminds us of birds we recognise, it equally
reveals passing artistic values and a 'scientific'
way of seeing which contrasts strikingly, for instance,
with Aboriginal bird drawings. Even today, a 'bird
in the hand' is often held to be 'worth two in the
bush', but the 'hand' of this exhibition is more that
of the artist than of the shooter, collector, taxidermist
or more recent bird bander.
Elizabeth
Lawson
Curator
January 1999
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