L’art du canard

What if Mona Lisa, instead of being a woman had been a turkey, or even a female duck? And if Napoleon had been a Mallard duck, Goethe a heron or Wagner a Pekinese? That is more or less the spirit that underlines this huge book: a world of ducks! Even Sumerian seals and hieroglyphs are revisited in this manner. Homo erectus is replaced by a anas erectus and the Venus of Willendorf turns into a Venus of Willenduck. One quickly gets dizzy: geishas looking at a mirror, reduced Jivaro heads, Manet characters, abstractions by Mondrian and even road signs undergo the same metamorphosis. What could have been a simple joke under the shape of a simple duck has become a true encyclopedia, animated by the group of Interduck artists. In front of the port of New York we have the duck of Liberty, holding its torch. Who knows, maybe the world would have been more peaceful under this patronage.

• L’art du canard, by the collectif Interduck, Glénat, 2016, 512 p., €45.