Natural Worlds

Canadian artist and naturalist Bateman travels the world observing birds and animals in their natural habitats, and this stunning collection of his paintings, lithographs and sketches--beautifully reproduced in full color--is a tribute to his awareness of the interconnectedness of living things as well as his skill as an artist. The amazingly detailed works are elegant and haunting--a snow-white egret silhouetted against the dark waters of a mangrove swamp, a giant panda peering through a filigree of ice-laden branches, a tiny frog almost hidden in a clump of beach grass, timber wolves emerging from the shadows of a snowy forest. There are also sensitive depictions of a deserted Indian village off the northeast coast of Vancouver Island, a stableyard in a remote village in northeastern Poland and the winter barnyard of his grandfather's farm in eastern Ontario, places the artist holds dear because humans have lived there in harmony with nature. Archbold's (Robert Bateman: An Artist in Nature) lucid text aptly describes Bateman's travels, his reverence for wilderness and his concern for the preservation of biological diversity. (Oct.)