Without a floor to stand on or
a horizon line to anchor them, these pigs could be blimps floating in
the sky against a cloud of fluffy particles. When this photograph was
taken in 1964, photographer Jerome Liebling wrote, "Any evidence
of rural idyll was long gone from Minnesota but it seemed that everyone
kept searching for the past memory. Like some fairy tale, the idyll would
reappear every August for ten days and display for us a marvelous cornucopia
of fruits, legumes, baked and canned goods, pumpkins, homey crafts. And
the most spectacular pigs, cows, sheep and horses. What we would not find
in the fields awaited us each year at the Minnesota State Fair."
(The Minnesota Photographs, 1997) By closing in with his camera
and excluding any details that may have been surrounding these sleeping,
peaceful pigs, Liebling kept them timeless. This would still be a familiar
sight at the Minnesota State Fair.
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