Symphony in Blue-Peacock

My interest in peacocks came very late. At first, I had considered them only as decorative elements in parks or on farms. The male’s display, with its beautiful tail feathers, was indeed remarkable, but it never occurred to me that this bird also lives wild in the jungle in India, where it is an important food source for the so-endangered tiger.

It was interesting to learn that both tame and wild peacocks are the same species. So I had to rethink my theory about their function as a decorative element in parks and to produce feathers for fashion in the decadent Art Nouveau period. I now think that they are among the most beautiful birds and forgive them their loud call that so often wakes me up too early.

The inspiration for this painting came when I was doing fieldwork, studying tigers in the Calgary Zoo. There, quite a few peacocks walked around free. Moving from the tigers to the lions, my attention was captured at once by this nice young male peacock, sunbathing on the warm dirt of a flower garden. I saw a painting there! I recorded all the details I needed with my camera. The bird was young and didn’t have tail feathers yet. I cropped the body where the tail starts, and I got my much-beloved close-up effect. The great variety of blues on the neck and chest inspired me to choose "Symphony in Blue" as a title.