American Art Collaborative

Despite its upright posture, barely visible orange foot ensconced in shadow, and open eye, this plover is dead. Two spots of dried blood along its breast and undertail reveal the fatal injuries—whether from an animal predator or human hunter is not clear. While working in Corea, Maine, Hartley painted deceased specimens he came upon. Yet Dead Plover captures an ambiguous moment between life and death, one echoed in his related poem “Plover”: “[I] saw his eyes close down upon / an emaciated world. / I could feel his breath leaving his / body, / his breath sinking slowly as the last / sigh left him.” In representing birds, Hartley also looked to the work of the painter and naturalist John James Audubon (1785–1851), whose emphasis on scientific observation he greatly respected. Working in the 1820s and ’30s, Audubon employed taxidermy or worked from freshly killed specimens to create his prolific representations of living birds with great fidelity.