A small painting of golden wheat leaning against a wooden stool beside a brush in a glass jar.

Original artwork, not a still

The Cock and the Fox

John Dryden

For Art may err, but Nature cannot miss.

Behind the line

What it means

Our interpretation.

Human craft is fallible and can go wrong, the line claims, while the natural order never misses its mark. It sets deliberate artistry against nature's reliability, suggesting that our made things carry mistakes that the world's own processes somehow avoid. It is a compact statement of trust in nature.

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