The Nature of Things

Heft this book, open it at random, and your first reaction might be, "Ah, a coffee-table book." And it could well be, but this is much more than just a coffee-table book, even as birds are much more than just their feathers. The birds in Katrina van Grouw's astonishing book have been defeathered, often skinned and disassembled right down to their musculature or their skeletons, but they are always fully recognizable as birds.  Their unfeathered selves are real specimens that are posed in the act of flying, walking, or standing, even as they would have in life.  Ms. van Grouw has rendered them in monochromatic drawings that are remarkably detailed and absolutely mesmerizing.  The author hastens to assure us that "no birds were harmed" in the production of the book. She has taken specimens that were already dead and prepared them for her drawings. If that were all there was to this book, it could pass as a beautiful art book, but it is really much more than that. ...