The Carrot Revolution

The day is coming when a single carrot, freshly observed, will set off a revolution - Paul Cezanne

The man in the moon drinks claret,
But he is a dull Jack-a-dandy;
Would he know a sheep's head from a Carrot
He should learn to drink cider and brandy.

Song of Mad Tom in Midsummer Night's Dream

Willem Frederik van Royen, The Carrot, 1599

 René Magritte, The Explication, 1952

You ask “What is life?” That is the same as asking “What is a carrot?” A carrot is a carrot and we know nothing more.  (Anton Chekhov, Letter to his wife, Olga Knipper Chekhov, April 20, 1904)

 This undated photo shows Lydia Guevara. The granddaughter of Cuban revolutionary leader Ernesto 'Che' Guevara is the face of a new campaign touting 'the vegetarian revolution'. It is the first vegetarianism campaign in South America 

 Bunny Project at Örebro Open Art, Sweden 2009

 Giuseppe Arcimboldo (1527-1593), The Greengrocer

Willem van Mieris, The Greengrocer, 1731

 Peter Blume, Vegetable Dinner, 1927

 François Boucher, Boy Holding a Carrot, 1738 

When a boy gets weak and ill and don't relish his meals, we give him a change of diet--turn him out, for an hour or so every day, into a neighbour's turnip field, or sometimes, if it's a delicate case, a turnip field and a piece of carrots alternately, and let him eat as many as he likes. (The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens)

 Diego Rivera, Las tentaciones de San Antonio, 1947


Queen Anne's Lace

by William Carlos Williams


Her body is not so white as
anemony petals nor so smooth -- nor
so remote a thing. It is a field
of the wild carrot taking
the field by force; the grass
does not raise above it.     

 Unknown Master

 Henri Rousseau

James Gillray, Carrot Sandwich, 1796 

The scene represented here is said to have been one of the usual amusements of Lord Sandwich. A guinea was the usual mark of his attention to the lucky flower-girl, or itinerant barrow-woman, who attracted his glance.

In Frank Capra’s 1934 Oscar-winning comedy, It Happened One Night, Clark Gable nervously munches on carrots.

A man here and there was gnawing a frozen carrot, with a kind of animal satisfaction expressed in his face; and thunderous snores came from generals who lay muffled up in ragged cloaks. (The Country Doctor by Honore de Balzac)
 

In the 1960's television series episode of "Lost in Space" Dr. Smith is attacked by a giant carrot. Millions of American children feared carrots after this episode was broadcast.

 Poster for 'Le Roi Carotte', an operetta by Jacques Offenbach at the Theatre de la Gaité, 1872

 Romeo Salta, Una carota al Parlamento, c. 1900

So now my lord and lady duke and duchess, here is your governor Sancho Panza, who in the bare ten days he has held the government has come by the knowledge that he would not give anything to be governor, not to say of an island, but of the whole world; and that point being settled, kissing your worships' feet, and imitating the game of the boys when they say, 'leap thou, and give me one,' I take a leap out of the government and pass into the service of my master Don Quixote; for after all, though in it I eat my bread in fear and trembling, at any rate I take my fill; and for my part, so long as I'm full, it's all alike to me whether it's with carrots or with partridges.  (Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes)

 George Condo, Portrait of a Queen, 2006

 Jean Dubuffet, Carrot Nose, 1961

ESTRAGON:

(violently). I'm hungry!

VLADIMIR:

Do you want a carrot?

ESTRAGON:

Is that all there is? 

(Beckett, Waiting for Godot)

 Viktor Pivovarov, Party, 2008

Had she expected to see the fascinating stranger so soon again? I think she had. Her big eyes said as much, as, furtively looking up at Mr. Walker’s face, they caught his looks; and then bouncing down again towards her plate, pretended to be very busy in looking at the boiled beef and carrots there displayed. She blushed far redder than those carrots, but her shining ringlets hid her confusion together with her lovely face. (William Makepeace Thackeray, Men's Wives, ch. III)

"Only in dreams are carrots as big as bears." (Old Yiddish saying)