Ludwig Heinrich Jungnickel
Three Blue Macaws (print)
circa 1909
These three are loud and fidgety. Their curiosity is etched into their ruffled feathers and cocked expressions as they attempt to make out what has caught their attentions, whether it is an insect, a noise or the studious, predator-like observer, Mr. Jungnickel, himself. Notice how the artist was able to transfer the lively trio onto a two-dimensional space without leaving behind any of their true spontaneity. Rather like a painting, he textured their plumaged bodies one by one, puzzling together three wonderfully asymmetrical mischief-makers all perched along two singularly black and white receding branches, therefore imbuing them with individual senses of perspective, character and realism. He concentrated their agitated forms within a thick bordered frame, almost as if to magnify their body language and to guide the viewer’s attention directly to the birds’ own, creating a fluid two-way bridge of communication between a set of on-lookers (though who began looking at whom first remains a puzzle itself). This print is not meant to be serious, however; despite its brilliant execution and careful study of anatomy, it is a scene that is meant to make one grin. The artist’s evident skill in being able to filter his subjects through an animated, almost humorous point-of-view brings out the silliness of any creature forced to remain posed in a random position for, in this case, eternity. Perhaps the roles are now switched: perhaps it is now we who may mock and mime good-naturedly back at those who, forever frozen but never entirely gone, peer out at us from this print. Almost as if we, the audience, are the fourth Macaw.
