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How have humans longed for birds, and what have they focused on when representing birds? What kind of conceptions were embodied in their longing for birds? And what are the actual birds that have been the source of their imaginations?
 
This book is the catalogue of the special exhibition “Birds of Paradise” held in 2023 to commemorate the 10th anniversary of Intermediatheque. Co-organized with L’ÉCOLE, School of Jewelry Arts, the exhibition showcased jewelry featuring birds and the original specimens on which the designs were based. Hens and chicks depicted with precise inlays, swallows engraved and enameled to represent feathers, extremely realistic and even species-identifiable racket hummingbird brooches, and a series of highly abstract pieces by Pierre Sterlé that can be defined as “conceptual birds”... In echo to these works, visitors were greeted by chickens that have been bred for human use, swallows with wings and tails sharpened for flight and courtship, racket hummingbirds as brilliant as jewels, and stuffed lampreys with crown feathers as eccentric as in an artist’s imagination. Intermediatheque has adopted Art & Science as one of the museum’s motifs. In this context, the exhibition was truly a fusion of art and science.
 
The title of the present exhibition and catalogue comes from the bird of paradise. When the bird was first introduced to Europeans in the 16th century, it was regarded as a bird of heaven, having no legs or wings, but rather strange ornamental feathers and flying on the wind for its entire life without landing on the ground. Hence its English name. In reality, however, the bird’s wings were sold to other customers, and its legs were cut off as they were cumbersome during transportation. The elegant feathers are actually decorative feathers used by the male to court the female. Each species of birds of paradise has its own unique feathers, which it displays while dancing to lure females into breeding.
 
This duet between the reality of nature, which easily exceeds human conceptions, and human imagination (or fantasy), which creates legends on heavenly birds inspired by the appearance of these real birds, has promoted the development of culture and science, while at the same time giving rise to arbitrary assumptions and overhunting by humans. In fact, the naturalist Alfred Wallace, the first European to see a live bird of paradise, feared what would happen if civilized people discovered this bird. Alas, his fears proved to be justified in the worst possible way.
 
This book by experts in various fields is a general study on the history of mankind’s insatiable efforts in its yearning for beauty to encounter birds, which have evolved for the sake of survival and reproduction, and to sublimate them into jewelry design. This book offers an insight on the wonders of nature as well as the wisdom and desires of humankind, in other words, a bird’s-eye view of natural history and the history of humanities.
 

(Written by MATSUBARA Hajime, Project Associate Professor and OSAWA Kei, Project Reseacher, The University Museum / 2024)