I opened up You’re All Just Jealous of my Jetpack this morning, and this cartoon leapt out at me.
I felt so smart, like a classically trained art historian, because I knew instantly that this was a reference to a famous cartoon from Gary Larson’s The Far Side. I even remember seeing it in the newspaper back in the 1980s, and puzzling over its profundities.
It’s become the painting of a pipe for our age.
“Ceci n’est pas une pipe” – (“This is not a pipe.”) Rene Magritte.
See : https://www.renemagritte.org/the-treachery-of-images.jsp
I spotted it too.
Link to Wikipedia entry for the Larson original https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cow_tools
I got the same satisfaction when I recognised the ‘Tristan’ theme originating from a Mozart quartet and Beethoven’s ‘Muss es sein?’ in ‘Die Walkure’. It’s always good to spot something for yourself.
I looked down ‘You’re All Just Jealous of my Jetpack’ and believe ‘Physics for Cats’ to be a reference to M C Escher.
At least, the cows have eyes now.