An excellent work of art

It may seem strange to review a field guide to birds as if it was a work of art. In the case of Lars Jonsson, however, it isn't so strange. Quite the contrary. Jonsson, who lives in Sweden, is both a bird-watcher and a painter. He was still in his twenties when he was commissioned to illustrate a five-volume field-guide to European birds. Frankly, I assumed the guy was much older! Today, Jonsson has a website in both Swedish and English, and also runs his very own art gallery, open to the public during the summer months. Of course, he has published art books specifically devoted to his paintings of birds, but somehow I feel that the field guides he illustrated are the "real" Lars Jonsson. What I find particularly fascinating about Jonsson is that he seems to know virtually everything about birds, despite not being a trained scientist in the field. Clearly, his contact network includes many "real" ornithologists, and equally clearly, he has spent hours upon hours in the wild, watching and painting birds.

"Birds of Mountain Regions" is the English translation of the fourth volume of the five-volume series mentioned above. Why review it, rather than the other volumes? I guess it's for nostalgic reasons. The Swedish edition of this book was the first book about birds my parents bought me as a kid, during a visit to the Museum of Natural History in Stockholm, incidentally the same museum where Jonsson's abilities as an artist were first discovered by some museum employee when Jonsson, still a teenager, made drawings of the stuffed birds. I never really read the book (the text is a typical, boring "field guide text"), but I was deeply intrigued by the painted illustrations, and I wasn't alone! At least 30 years ago, the general feeling among bird-watchers in Sweden was that the five-volume series is very difficult to use and very expensive to buy, but that the illustrations are remarkable, and almost *to* good to be true.

Eventually, I prodded my parents to buy me some more volumes, and I even bought some myself, and when I look at the entire series, this volume still strikes me as the best one. Why? No idea. I'm not an art critic, but it seems that Jonsson's skills improved over time, making the later volumes better than the earlier one. Or *even* better, since the earlier volumes weren't bad either... :-)

One thing I particularly like about this book is that the birds are often placed in their natural environment, rather than simply painted in isolation against a blank background, which seems to be the standard procedure among field guides. Even Jonsson sometimes paints like that, but just as often, he places the ducks firmly in the water, the jays and owls in the pinetrees, and the majestic crane somewhere in the northern marshlands. It's stuff like this that makes this much more than a field guide, and turns it into an art book in its own right. Jonsson also paints the birds from angles that make them look alive, rather than simply being specimens on a color plate.

Incidentally, don't let the surprisingly ugly cover of this book fool you. The original Swedish edition had a much better cover, showing a bluethroat. As a kid, it was precisely that bluethroat which prompted me to choose this particular book over the others (my father would only let me buy one book in the museum store).

Is the book good as a field guide? No idea. It covers the birds of northern Scandinavia and Finland, but apparently only the most typical species. "Southern" birds aren't included, even if they happen to live in the area. This is presumably what made Lars Jonsson to eventually publish a one-volume field guide, "Birds of Europe", also available from Amazon. But as the work of a great artist, it's five-stars hands down. And remember, he was only 26 years old when he wrote and illustrated this book!

PS. If you can, try to get hold of the HARDBACK edition from 1979. It may be available from the British version of Amazon. Jonsson's paintings should be enjoyed hardback!