Wild Turkey 1825 - 1833

Curator: Look at this gorgeous "Wild Turkey", likely completed sometime between 1825 and 1833, now residing here at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. What do you see when you first look at it? Editor: The colours strike me, actually. They're quite muted, yet they convey such a vibrant life. I’m also captivated by its meticulous realism. Curator: Realism was definitely the point. This work and others were undertaken with almost scientific rigor by Prince Charles Lucien Bonaparte who believed it crucial to meticulously document these species. It speaks volumes about the cultural moment, doesn’t it? A kind of…imperial archive. Editor: Absolutely, it does. But also it captures an innocence that maybe only existed on the page? I mean these birds, noble as they seem, were probably already disappearing from their wild landscapes even as they were immortalized this way. I feel a kind of quiet lament within this portrait of…dominion. Curator: A poignant interpretation! Knowing Bonaparte, I imagine he'd bristle at that, because what he saw himself doing was contributing to human knowledge! Consider also the artistic constraints! This wasn't a photo. The watercolour, pencil, print combo--that level of precision takes incredible discipline. He also must've depended on the field research of naturalists who probably killed specimens to send home, no? That act of killing made for a gorgeous pose here… but. Editor: It feels morally complicated now, right? Like… here's an endangered creature made timeless and we, as contemporary viewers, have to wrestle with both its aesthetic triumph and its participation in something so deeply colonialist. Did the science overshadow the sorrow of the subjects themselves? Curator: Exactly. It highlights the tension in the act of cataloging the natural world – the drive to preserve versus the methods employed, particularly during periods of expansion and exploitation. Editor: Yes, so perhaps what makes this image endure is that beautiful, heart-wrenching push and pull.