Journey to Perfection: The Agricultural Art of Ross Butler

Terry A. Crowley is a professor of history at the University of Guelph,
and the author of Agnes Macphail and the Politics of Equality.

In some areas of life, the human desire to see as well as to imagine
come together through various forms of artistic representation. Art
devoted to agriculture serves as a case in point. Since the credo of
improved agriculture through science took root in 18th-century Europe,
graphic representations of what farm animals might look like as a result
of selective breeding have been common. William Brown, the first
agriculture professor at the Ontario Agricultural College during the
1870s, wanted the Canadian farm to emulate the specimens represented in
paintings and graphic art. The fat, meaty animal rather than the scrawny
beast was the ideal, but the development of a market for Canadian pork
in the United Kingdom (where consumers preferred lean bacon) led
entrepreneur Joseph Flavelle to insist on new finishing techniques to
produce for export animals with less fat.

Ontario amateur artist, sculptor, photographer, and songwriter Ross
Butler (1907–1995) fits within this tradition of providing the ideal
through representation. The work produced by this self-taught artist was
highly variable. Some of his art was romantic, some idealistic, and some
downright bad. What makes this biography of Butler and his art
worthwhile is the larger story of the way in which various breed
associations and businesses commissioned Butler to produce ideal
representations (or true types) of their livestock. They wanted the
ideal placed before their eyes so that they could engineer livestock to
conform to the image.

For those associated with agriculture or who can remember visiting
agriculture fairs, this beautifully produced book offers a nostalgic
tour. The volume is full of illustrations (some of them in color) and
the text is charming. By basing her account almost exclusively on her
subject’s memory, the author has written a biography that is almost as
naive as much of Butler’s art.

Ross Butler provided a means that allowed life to emulate art. His
imagination captured what breeders aimed for in the production of
livestock. As a result, many 20th-century farm animals were as different
in appearance and in quality from their 19th-century progenitors as
those early animals had been from livestock in the 18th-century. Still,
the art world will take no more notice of livestock art than it does of
popular wildlife artist Glen Loates.