Given their aesthetic diversity, expressive faces, and graceful movements, birds have become a popular artistic muse. Creatives often turn to these winged creatures for inspiration, finding new and innovative ways to capture their unique colouring, fascinating patterns, and distinctive silhouettes. As evident in this striking selection of birds in art, the artist approaches this iconography in a myriad of ways. 

The exploration of nature in art can take endless forms, because nature provides us with such a vase wealth of inspiring phenomena. In the early 1800’s, before cameras or reliable preservation techniques, bird artists gathered and recorded important scientific information about the ornithological world. The ability to observe their surroundings and draw what they saw was not just a prerequisite for making and selling art - observation and illustration were important tools of research. 

The art of depicting birds emerged in the cave culture of Palaeolithic times. The very first drawing of a bird (that we know about) was of an owl, found on the wall of a cave in Vallon-Pont-d’Arc, France, in 1994. And though sketching may have given way to high-tech tools, drawing and painting continue to be superior tools for people seeking to learn about birds. If you find that hard to believe, consider that many contemporary birders prefer the field guide drawings of Roger Tory Peterson and David Allen Sibley to guides relying on photography. 

The pieces that compose this collection of avian art are stunning watercolours on paper by Simonida Filipova Kitanovska, a professional painter from Skopje, North Macedonia. These watercolours are her creative expression of my photographs from the beautiful wildlife, bird and nature rich countries of India, Japan, Thailand, Malaysia to name a few.