Tuesday, August 30, 2011

A Romanticized Farm Painting, Deconstructed

The Farmer's Daughter by Elizabeth Jane Gardner Bouguereau

1. The woman is barefoot. You do not, I repeat, do not walk around chickens with bare feet. Squishy smeary things get between your toes.

2. With her hand full of grain, she'd better keep those fingers away from beak's reach. And because chickens can fly, beak's reach is pretty high. Had the painting been captured a few seconds later, she'd have a peck wound on that lazy scatter hand of hers.

3. Long skirts and chickens don't mix. Maybe she's just out for a thrill, but I've had a chicken up my skirt before, and it wasn't pretty. Only the manliest pants will do for chicken chores, now. (If the skirt isn't billowy like hers, it could work, but there is too much room for an inquisitive biddy under that hem).

4. These are the politest chickens I've ever seen. They're not all fighting over the same piece of corn. Maybe it was a more formal society, then, but the casual cluckers of our contemporary culture are in a chicken eat chicken world.

Anybody with chicken experience have anything to add?

10 comments:

Veronica said...

Yes, at our house, you would never see a female, skirt or no skirt, feeding chickens. It's the boys job!

Jenn said...

She makes feeding chickens look desirable. Is it? I have no clue because I've never fed chickens. But to me, she looks like she's livin' the life. ;)

Rachel said...

I am currently afraid of one of our chickens.  We unfortunately have two roosters, which is not what we intended, but we have yet to do anything drastic about it.  This rooster was the smallest of our flock, the one who always wanted to be held whenever we went out to tend to them.  We even named him (when we thought he was a she) Chicken Little.  Well, Chicken LIttle has turned into a mean attack rooster.  He attacks whenever anyone goes in to feed them.  He attacks the electric netting when I bring out produce scraps.  He watches me and paces the fencing when I hang laundry to dry, up on the deck (15 feet above him!)  The bird is possessed.  So to see this painting, makes me think the artist really had no experience with real chickens.

Kate said...

Well, not chicken related per se, but look at that snowy complexion.  That girl hasn't spent more than 5 minutes outside in her life.  Also, her feet are *way* too clean.

Jennie C. said...

She's also got her back turned to a rooster. Maybe our roosters are particularly mean, but turning your back on it is an invitation to aggression!

Farmer's City Wife said...

I baby the baby chicks, but once they're in the coop, I've only had to feed them (when my darling was working 22 hour days) 3 times ;).

Farmer's City Wife said...

LOL! That's probably true!
Our rooster is a Casanova and likes to charm us as much as his harem. But OH I've heard horror stories of those mean roosters. Hope yours make great fricassees soon ;).

Farmer's City Wife said...

LOL! True dat!

The_Extremely_Bearish_Bear said...

HAHA!!!  Great post as usual!

Farmer's City Wife said...

Thanks :).

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