The Farm Animals
This print comments on the resonance of commercial names and hence advertising's ability to exalt mechanics or technology into a legendary sphere. Engraved illustrations of breeds of cattle are captioned with car names.
Various breeds of cattle are presented in a grid-like pattern resembling pages from an educational or scientific manual. However, the names printed beneath each cow are those of car manufacturers. As a young man, Broodthaers befriended the Surrealist painter René Magritte. One of Magritte's most famous paintings (The treachery of images, 1929) featured a picture of a pipe with the words 'This is not a pipe' written in French underneath. Broodthaers was fascinated by the way Magritte used words to contradict a visual image. Here he plays his own game, pitting visual and linguistic meanings against each another.
