The first thing I did was take 5 seconds for an image search to confirm that the cows in the paintings look like.. actual cows. Then I read the article, and remain perplexed about art and those who write about art.
I had the same reaction; this was a glaring omission; photos of cows should have been at the top of the article as a reference. The article's main (but unstated) point isn't cows in these paintings are rectangular, but cows in these paintings are unrealistic in the same way. To prove this point, he used many of these paintings, but no pictures of actual cows, which would have proven his or her point.
Doing the work myself, as you have, I find that many cows are rectangular. The author is unequipped to dispel me of this notion, if it's incorrect, but could have easily if he had addressed it preemptively by clearly stating his actual thesis. (Unrealism, not rectangleness). (And if he is correct)
You’ve missed the point. It’s not that cows are unrealistically sqaure, it is that its strange how many paintings of rectangular cows there are, and the author guesses its because they’re all displaying the profile. Why is this perspective so dominant in the 19th century, and what does it mean for the formal considerations of the artwork? These are the questions that are important, not whether or not cows are actually sqaure.
I concur that what you describe is a central theme. I also think that a lack of addressing the question (with pictures or words) of realism leaves it open for readers to take away themes other than the one you highlight.
There is no “realism,” photography is its own form of art. What’s remarkable is how common this perspective is even today, such that it has been produced as “realistic” for you and how you see the world.
I agree, however there is something to be said for the distance between the subject and the representation. If the 'underlying cow' is already somewhat square, then the representation in painting or photo is going to be close to that nebulous reality.
While it might be possible to take a photo of a cow that turns out looking spherical (due to the lighting or angle), it is surely going to be harder?
I guess there’s the platonist/pythagorean angle that circle, sqaure, and triangle are fundemental forms of seeing and artworks can only approximate them. But even then that is only for the forms of our perception and is not fundemental to the thing in itself, which has neither a name nor a definite shape, but is also in some sense shaped by forces of perception (in a material sense). But then I would argue that technology itself opens up not only new ways of seeing but also new formal possibilities and claiming that there is something fundemental to the forms of seeing to form in general limits those possibilities.
The article points the contrast between how cows and how cattles are represented. "With ‘cattle’ you see lots of typical landscape scenes; lovely green meadows, maybe some water, and groups of nicely-painted cows grazing away." The cows paintings have different composition - a little to no background and a single standing large cow in focus.
Likewise, there is contrast between how highland cows are represented - from the front "the cows look like they’re posing for an album cover.". They do indeed look like a cow metal band could. They dont look rectangular, they look hairy.
“Ideal” is a nice word for arbitrary fashion, literally a herd mentality.
This mirrors what happens with muscle cars, women’s handbags, JavaScript frameworks, and so many other things. The purpose remains ostensibly functional but the real driver is peer group status, to the point that function is totally compromised but the peer group loves it.
So an arbitrary ideal, then? As in, not conforming to 'the' ideal in the sense of some platonic, eternal idea of a cow, but some ideal in the mind of farmers of what they would prefer cows to be.
Now in certain regions cattle are bred for being hardy and general overall health in extreme climates, quantity of beef production vs resources that are put into a herd financially... Such as:
As with a magic trick, the delight resides more in the mystery than the solution, and this article spends its time appropriately. Were the answer given too quickly - were the reader not given the opportunity to marinate for a time in the oddness of the phenomenon, while being drip-fed increasingly outlandish examples - the impact of the reveal at the end would be lost. The punchline is the recontextualization of what we think of as "art" as functional objects, and it is only through being invited to ponder for ourselves for a time that we are prevented from pretending that we understood this all along.
At least these artists had actually seen a cow. There are some hilarious medieval artworks of lions where the artist had clearly never seen a lion.
https://www.sadanduseless.com/medieval-lion-art/
Sounds like a fun fact, but were those drawn by people who can draw cows and humans, and aim to draw realistically? Middle Ages were quite a dip in art generally, AFAICT, with humans often not looking realistic, either.
I guess it possible that these were just terrible artists, But it seems more likely that they just didn't know what a lion actually looked like. Afterall, if you were an English medieval monk, how likely were you to see an actual lion? They were no photos to go off.
I guess that Cambodian lion is rather like the Chinese lions, which "are intended to reflect the emotion of the animal as opposed to the reality of the lion" [1], falling into the bucket with intentionally unrealistic (non-lifelike) art.
Only explanation:
No physicists were involved in painting these cows.
(Everybody knows that physicists only know spherical cows)
Kind regards,
Roel (yes, physicist by origin)
Physicists switch between square, spherical, and cylindrical cows depending on the coordinate system they are working in. However they would be squares with a unitless volume and length of 1. There is no need for rectangular cows, because you can just redefine the basis vectors to make it square.
Not quite on point: the reason there are so many pictures of cows is not 'ubiquity'. There are many phone boxes in Britain, not so many paintings of them.
The question is really, why are cows so relevant to paint? The answer is, the people who could afford to pay a painter were wealthy landowners, and their pride and joy was often purebred cattle. Each picture is some valuable animal, an advertisement if you will.
(In which we also learn about the improper shapes of sheep and pigs.)
Edit: ok, reading the comments more accurately (I used not working keywords to check overlappings before posting), there is a link between the two: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42207572
People think that art from the past must have all been done by masters, but just as with any pursuit at any time, most practitioners are mediocre to bad.
Alasdair posted this clip on bluesky, where I saw it. In the comments, Art UK had posted this article as a reply. Once I clicked through, I knew it would be exactly what HN would appreciate, and here we are.
While I don't know what these oats are a reference to, I can't help but think of the absolute classic Fresh Oats from this LGR video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSxaUHT3yoI
From back when LGR was still reviewing silly games and edutainment games
I haven't yet read the whole article, but I immediately find it fascinating - I grew up in the UK and these images are familiar, they were in country pubs and occasionally people's houses.
It never occurred to me to ask why!
I guess I assumed the images were old, and someone wanted to show off that they had a particularly spectacular cow. And the author is right, so many of them are side on and rectangular.
I wonder how many other things in the world that I've ignored as basically wallpaper actually have a backstory...
I'm taking a short break from grinding Factorio: Space Age, to mention that the timeless cult classic masterpiece Wagnerian Blade Runner of cargo hauling space operas "Space Truckers" (1996, Dennis Hopper), featured prescient square pigs, which packed tightly and efficiently into space trucks.
Well, I suppose rectangular cows would make the math even simpler, as you wouldn't have to use polar coordinates or have π as a factor in your calculations.
> The answer, as best I can find it, seems to be related to the points about status.
> The second is the overly bulgy bit in front of their front legs, the brisket. And, also according to my research, when cattle are judged for competitions or prizes, the brisket is taken into consideration.
The shape of the cows is exaggerated, but not by much - many breeds of cow are just incredibly rectangular in profile.
https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5475e650e4b0df...
One of the first things you learn about farming cows is that meat cows are rectangular, and dairy cows are triangular.
Some of the paintings are quite exaggerated though, probably for the purpose of bragging rights by the patron.
The first thing I did was take 5 seconds for an image search to confirm that the cows in the paintings look like.. actual cows. Then I read the article, and remain perplexed about art and those who write about art.
I had the same reaction; this was a glaring omission; photos of cows should have been at the top of the article as a reference. The article's main (but unstated) point isn't cows in these paintings are rectangular, but cows in these paintings are unrealistic in the same way. To prove this point, he used many of these paintings, but no pictures of actual cows, which would have proven his or her point.
Doing the work myself, as you have, I find that many cows are rectangular. The author is unequipped to dispel me of this notion, if it's incorrect, but could have easily if he had addressed it preemptively by clearly stating his actual thesis. (Unrealism, not rectangleness). (And if he is correct)
You’ve missed the point. It’s not that cows are unrealistically sqaure, it is that its strange how many paintings of rectangular cows there are, and the author guesses its because they’re all displaying the profile. Why is this perspective so dominant in the 19th century, and what does it mean for the formal considerations of the artwork? These are the questions that are important, not whether or not cows are actually sqaure.
I concur that what you describe is a central theme. I also think that a lack of addressing the question (with pictures or words) of realism leaves it open for readers to take away themes other than the one you highlight.
There is no “realism,” photography is its own form of art. What’s remarkable is how common this perspective is even today, such that it has been produced as “realistic” for you and how you see the world.
I agree, however there is something to be said for the distance between the subject and the representation. If the 'underlying cow' is already somewhat square, then the representation in painting or photo is going to be close to that nebulous reality.
While it might be possible to take a photo of a cow that turns out looking spherical (due to the lighting or angle), it is surely going to be harder?
I guess there’s the platonist/pythagorean angle that circle, sqaure, and triangle are fundemental forms of seeing and artworks can only approximate them. But even then that is only for the forms of our perception and is not fundemental to the thing in itself, which has neither a name nor a definite shape, but is also in some sense shaped by forces of perception (in a material sense). But then I would argue that technology itself opens up not only new ways of seeing but also new formal possibilities and claiming that there is something fundemental to the forms of seeing to form in general limits those possibilities.
The article points the contrast between how cows and how cattles are represented. "With ‘cattle’ you see lots of typical landscape scenes; lovely green meadows, maybe some water, and groups of nicely-painted cows grazing away." The cows paintings have different composition - a little to no background and a single standing large cow in focus.
Likewise, there is contrast between how highland cows are represented - from the front "the cows look like they’re posing for an album cover.". They do indeed look like a cow metal band could. They dont look rectangular, they look hairy.
I spent my time trying to figure out what artuk was.
Honestly, I knew I had to submit it when I got to the sheep. The cows aren't far off, but that sheep!
Those beluga whale pigs I’ve seen somewhere before and they haunt my dreams.
Haha yeah that sheep is pretty wack.
Brits had Minecraft sheep before Minecraft
Particularly in the haunches.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shorthorn
One of the cows pictured.
And the beef cattle industry ideal shape has evolved over time as well. In the past that rectangle with short stubby legs was what they wanted.
https://onpasture.com/2016/07/04/from-big-to-small-to-big-to...
All 3 parts of this are fascinating.
“Ideal” is a nice word for arbitrary fashion, literally a herd mentality.
This mirrors what happens with muscle cars, women’s handbags, JavaScript frameworks, and so many other things. The purpose remains ostensibly functional but the real driver is peer group status, to the point that function is totally compromised but the peer group loves it.
So an arbitrary ideal, then? As in, not conforming to 'the' ideal in the sense of some platonic, eternal idea of a cow, but some ideal in the mind of farmers of what they would prefer cows to be.
Ideal with livestock is usually for A reason, not arbitrary.
You don't want stubby legs because they don't breed as easily.
Breeding animals isn't like technology.
Isn’t any philosophy about cows a herd mentality?
Now in certain regions cattle are bred for being hardy and general overall health in extreme climates, quantity of beef production vs resources that are put into a herd financially... Such as:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droughtmaster
There is also the aptly named SQUARE MEATER which maintains the rectangular cow aesthetic
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square_Meater
I should note that this image of a rectangular cow is hosted on SQUAREspace.
Gorgeous brisket!
As with a magic trick, the delight resides more in the mystery than the solution, and this article spends its time appropriately. Were the answer given too quickly - were the reader not given the opportunity to marinate for a time in the oddness of the phenomenon, while being drip-fed increasingly outlandish examples - the impact of the reveal at the end would be lost. The punchline is the recontextualization of what we think of as "art" as functional objects, and it is only through being invited to ponder for ourselves for a time that we are prevented from pretending that we understood this all along.
American art by the late 20th century depicted cows more realistically: https://shorturl.at/aqvDa
At least these artists had actually seen a cow. There are some hilarious medieval artworks of lions where the artist had clearly never seen a lion. https://www.sadanduseless.com/medieval-lion-art/
Someone made a timeline of European drawings of elephants after they disappeared from Europe: https://www.uliwestphal.de/elephas-anthropogenus/index.html
That's amazing. Thanks.
Sounds like a fun fact, but were those drawn by people who can draw cows and humans, and aim to draw realistically? Middle Ages were quite a dip in art generally, AFAICT, with humans often not looking realistic, either.
I guess it possible that these were just terrible artists, But it seems more likely that they just didn't know what a lion actually looked like. Afterall, if you were an English medieval monk, how likely were you to see an actual lion? They were no photos to go off.
Check out this Cambodian lion: https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/a-guardian-lion-281362 The craftsmanship is quite impressive. But it doesn't look anything much like a lion IMHO.
I guess that Cambodian lion is rather like the Chinese lions, which "are intended to reflect the emotion of the animal as opposed to the reality of the lion" [1], falling into the bucket with intentionally unrealistic (non-lifelike) art.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_guardian_lions#Appeara...
There were a few English artists who might have had the opportunity of knowing what they looked like, given there were lions at the Tower of London:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_London
"Records of 1210–1212 show payments to lion keepers" - although who was allowed to visit the lions is a different question ...
Only explanation: No physicists were involved in painting these cows. (Everybody knows that physicists only know spherical cows) Kind regards, Roel (yes, physicist by origin)
Physicists switch between square, spherical, and cylindrical cows depending on the coordinate system they are working in. However they would be squares with a unitless volume and length of 1. There is no need for rectangular cows, because you can just redefine the basis vectors to make it square.
Can you make a square cow from a spherical cow using only compass and straight edge?
I came here to make this same joke good sir! You beat me to it!
Not quite on point: the reason there are so many pictures of cows is not 'ubiquity'. There are many phone boxes in Britain, not so many paintings of them.
The question is really, why are cows so relevant to paint? The answer is, the people who could afford to pay a painter were wealthy landowners, and their pride and joy was often purebred cattle. Each picture is some valuable animal, an advertisement if you will.
Incredible coincidence (new video):
Alasdair Beckett-King, Cows are hard to draw (especially the corners)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8s2_wjUTT-M
(Extract from his stand-up comedy show)
(In which we also learn about the improper shapes of sheep and pigs.)
Edit: ok, reading the comments more accurately (I used not working keywords to check overlappings before posting), there is a link between the two: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42207572
The author of the post is wrong to say there's no famous cows, see the Craven Heifer [0] for example.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craven_Heifer
People think that art from the past must have all been done by masters, but just as with any pursuit at any time, most practitioners are mediocre to bad.
Recurring xmas gift for my mother for decades: https://www.calendars.com/shop/cows-cows-cows-2025-wall-cale...
Something to recite while giving it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leisure_(poem)
"Animals shouldn't have corners!" https://www.youtube.com/shorts/8s2_wjUTT-M
How does this posting coincide with the posting of this YouTube video. Coincidence? I think not!
https://m.youtube.com/shorts/8s2_wjUTT-M
Alasdair posted this clip on bluesky, where I saw it. In the comments, Art UK had posted this article as a reply. Once I clicked through, I knew it would be exactly what HN would appreciate, and here we are.
Also rectangular pigs.
Bröther, may I have some oats!
edit : Ah, in fact that painting is in the article at the very end : "A Pair of Pigs Image credit: Compton Verney"
While I don't know what these oats are a reference to, I can't help but think of the absolute classic Fresh Oats from this LGR video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSxaUHT3yoI
From back when LGR was still reviewing silly games and edutainment games
It's from https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/brother-may-i-have-some-oats (I only learned of the meme recently, not from the original)
Reference? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSD6WhIAF8Y
Outrageous lack of rectangular chickens.
I haven't yet read the whole article, but I immediately find it fascinating - I grew up in the UK and these images are familiar, they were in country pubs and occasionally people's houses.
It never occurred to me to ask why!
I guess I assumed the images were old, and someone wanted to show off that they had a particularly spectacular cow. And the author is right, so many of them are side on and rectangular.
I wonder how many other things in the world that I've ignored as basically wallpaper actually have a backstory...
I love the weird stuff HN throws up.
I'm taking a short break from grinding Factorio: Space Age, to mention that the timeless cult classic masterpiece Wagnerian Blade Runner of cargo hauling space operas "Space Truckers" (1996, Dennis Hopper), featured prescient square pigs, which packed tightly and efficiently into space trucks.
Space Truckers - Title Scene (Square Pigs):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJtHMe3MltU
"Square pig" prop from Space Truckers:
https://entertainment.ha.com/itm/movie-tv-memorabilia/-squar...
Square Hogs are pigs bred and farmed on Mars:
https://aliens.fandom.com/wiki/Square_Hog
>Square Hogs are merely pigs that have been genetically jacked up and overfed, confined in square cages making them extremely obese and fat.
>The Earth company Inter Pork ship these animals across human space.
Well, I suppose rectangular cows would make the math even simpler, as you wouldn't have to use polar coordinates or have π as a factor in your calculations.
That wasn't a painting of a pair of pigs, that was a painting of oversized ticks after a human sized meal.
Top kine.
TLDR:
> The answer, as best I can find it, seems to be related to the points about status.
> The second is the overly bulgy bit in front of their front legs, the brisket. And, also according to my research, when cattle are judged for competitions or prizes, the brisket is taken into consideration.