THERE'S A WOODPECKER IN THE LOUVRE.
Not literally, but if you walk far enough into the northern european paintings wing and look carefully at the margins of illuminated manuscripts, the decorated borders of 15th-century flemish altarpieces, the symbolic vocabulary stuffed into the corners of renaissance canvases - the bird is everywhere and it's never just a bird.
In medieval iconography, the pelican tearing open its own breast to feed its young was the symbol of Christ's sacrifice - so common, so loaded that painters didn't need to label it. The owl meant death or wisdom, depending on who was asking. The raven carried prophecy. The eagle carried empire. The hoopoe, in persian sufi poetry, led the other birds through seven valleys toward God.
For thousands of years, across cultures that never spoke to each other, humans kept returning to the same image: a creature with a beak and a meaning inside it that couldn't be said any other way.
I've been thinking about that a lot since I found @thebeaksart.
Gotta eat pasta in italy, croissant in paris, burger in united states, sushi in japan, tacos in mexico, shawarma in lebanon, paella in spain, poutine in canada, kimchi in south korea, curry in india, pho in vietnam, fondue in switzerland and fish & chips in united kingdom.