Anatomically accurate art abounds
Friday, August 7, 2009 at 5:07PM I probably never would have noticed the realistic detail had a friend not directed my attention to it.
"You need to include the anatomically correct bull sculpture on the east side of the 'Hands' foot bridge in a future blog post," he wrote on my Facebook page. "Truly inspiring."
Having yet to visit the Hands Across the Merrimack pedestrian bridge, this suggestion gave me the perfect excuse. And as promised, right on the east side of the bridge I came upon a one-ton sculpture of a bull:
This sculpture was erected by the Alex Shapiro Charitable Trust to "to commemorate Manchester's entrepreneurial tradition as exemplified by the founders and employees of Granite State Packing Company and Jac Pac Foods."
And, also as promised, the bull is, in fact, anatomically correct:
When I mentioned this curiousity to another friend, he suggested I check out Stark Park. Once there, I proceeded to a statue of the park's namesake, General John Stark, mounted on his trusty steed:
And sure enough, the horse's male anatomy was on full display. Someone even took the liberty of painting said anatomy a reddish hue:
Curious to know if such anatomical realism might exist elsewhere in the city, I headed to the only other animal-related sculpture/statue I know of in Manchester, that of General Casimir Pulaski atop a horse in the aptly-named Pulaski Park.
Here, too, the horse in question is undeniably male:
Odd.
Reader Comments (9)
HAHAHAHAHHA LMFAO! too fucked up... but no doubt I am totally laughing... what a post! only u...
http://bestrecessionever.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/bull-balls-300x206.jpg (You dont allow images in your comments)
I don't know the location but it is what I call the NYSE Bull....I'm sure you can figure out which I mean.
Two thoughts:
1. The sculpture was installed with very little publicity. It's not every day that Manch gets a new piece of legitimate public art. A prominent mention in the UL and/or Hippo would have been nice.
2. The sculpture was installed at the east end of the pedestrian bridge across the Merrimack. The ass end is next to the walking path. Aside from the prominent nutsack, the more interesting end (the head) is looking north out over the embankment covered with weeds and staghorn sumac. I tried to position myself to take a picture looking into the face of the bull. I couldn't do it. I kept slipping down the embankment into the weeds and sumac.
I argued with my 14 year old babysitter about what the sex of the cow was. She still is convinced its udders:)
The Bull installation was on the first page of the art section of the Hippo and the front page of the Manchester Express when it was installed.
And why wouldn't it have its genitals? It only makes sense to portray things as they actually are. Would you flatten the chest of a female when sculpting her? Of course not. Would you leave out the udders of a cow when sculpting it? Of course not, even though the udders are the bovine equivalent.
I suppose you're right, Lynette. I guess I just assumed the animals would be genital-neutral, ala Ken and Barbie. Where I come from, including genitalia on statues/sculptures, animal or otherwise, would be considered by more than a few to be scandalous.
Lynette do you get a lot of get a lot of patchwork bulls in your neck of the woods?
An unfortunate update, the heck bull's balls are now blue. For a trivial aside, the statue is roughly life size. Heck cattle was an attempt to salvage the genes of the giant bovine called the Auroch by selecting for traits found in more modern cattle breeds.