Untitled (baby fawns and cow) c. 1950

Editor: This is an untitled photograph by Jack Gould, featuring baby fawns and a cow. It has a strangely comforting and surreal quality to it. What do you make of this unusual grouping? Curator: The grouping speaks volumes. The cow, often a symbol of nurture and domesticity, juxtaposed with the wild, innocent fawns. It feels like a constructed image of pastoral idealism. The cow seems to be both a guardian and a participant in something unnatural. How does it make you feel? Editor: A little uneasy, actually. The cow’s leash adds to the feeling of unnatural constraint. Curator: Precisely! The leash is a potent symbol. It represents control, ownership, but also, perhaps, a distorted sense of protection. It distills cultural anxieties around nature versus nurture, wildness versus domestication. Editor: I see it now; it is not a portrait of harmony but one of imposed order! Thanks!