Historical Art
The Paintings of Geometric Cows in the 19th Century UK
How art was exaggerated to portray wealthy British landowners
Source-Public Domain
The early 19th-century livestock art of the UK portrayed corpulent paintings of cows, sheep, and pigs. The commercial paintings and prints often came with information like the animals' size measurements and the farm owner breeding techniques.
According to animal studies professor Ron Broglio, the size of the animals was exaggerated in the paintings to show the idealized animal shape. The cows were portrayed in a rectangular shape, the pigs in football shape, and sheep as oblong.
Why cows were depicted as rectangular in paintings
The wealthy farm owners publicized their wealth and status by commissioning corpulent cow paintings and boasting the new breeding techniques and practices. The “rustic or naive art” was used to portray the mega-sized cows with their petite and tiny landowners.
Rich farmers incorporated improved breeding and feeding methods to grow the size of their livestock. Oil cakes and turnips were fed to cows.
The elite farmers used the exaggerated paintings of cows in exhibitions and as an act of self-promotion. The giant cattle…
