Seán Williams
Land of Milk & Money
Once, fossil fuels were regarded as the primary evil threatening our planet’s future. Recently, however, the humble cow has come to take its place alongside them. Methane from bovine behinds is now recognised as a major contributor to climate change.
Cows are iconic of the countryside, especially in countries, like the Netherlands, where they have an outsized economic role. The well-known black-and-white dairy breed, the Friesian, was originally Dutch and the cow has long been celebrated in Dutch culture. Last year, a new museum glorifying Gouda cheese opened in the town in South Holland from which it takes its name. It was also the four-hundredth anniversary of the birth of the Dutch painter Aelbert Cuyp, famous for his pastoral scenes with cows. Cuyp’s pictures are realistic in a double sense: the cows are convincing and the paintings also capture a period of agricultural modernisation in the Netherlands. The Dutch Golden Age was an era not only of great painting but also of economic prosperity. The Dutch imported cheap grain from the Baltic as livestock feed and used their lowland pastures to fatten cattle and produce dairy products, such as cheese, which were exported abroad. They invested their substantial profits in land drainage and waterways. Simon Schama says that Cuyp’s cow paintings are a bovine
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
London's East End was long synonymous with poverty and sweatshops, while its West End was associated with glamour and high society. But when it came to the fashion industry, were the differences really so profound?
Sharman Kadish - Winkle-pickers & Bum Freezers
Sharman Kadish: Winkle-pickers & Bum Freezers - Fashion City: How Jewish Londoners Shaped Global Style; Fashion City: ...
literaryreview.co.uk
In 1982, Donald Rumsfeld presented Saddam Hussein with a pair of golden spurs. Two decades later he was dropping bunker-busting bombs on his palaces.
Where did the US-Iraqi relationship go wrong?
Rory Mccarthy - The Case of the Vanishing Missiles
Rory Mccarthy: The Case of the Vanishing Missiles - The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the United States and the ...
literaryreview.co.uk
Barbara Comyns was a dog breeder, a house painter, a piano restorer, a landlady... And a novelist.
@nclarke14 on the lengths 20th-century women writers had to go to make ends meet:
Norma Clarke - Her Family & Other Animals
Norma Clarke: Her Family & Other Animals - Barbara Comyns: A Savage Innocence by Avril Horner
literaryreview.co.uk