HN Reader

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.

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.

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...

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/

American art by the late 20th century depicted cows more realistically: https://shorturl.at/aqvDa

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.

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...

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)

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

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.

Recurring xmas gift for my mother for decades: https://www.calendars.com/shop/cows-cows-cows-2025-wall-cale...

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.

How does this posting coincide with the posting of this YouTube video. Coincidence? I think not!

https://m.youtube.com/shorts/8s2_wjUTT-M

Also rectangular pigs.

That wasn't a painting of a pair of pigs, that was a painting of oversized ticks after a human sized meal.

Top kine.

"Animals shouldn't have corners!" https://www.youtube.com/shorts/8s2_wjUTT-M

I love the weird stuff HN throws up.

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.