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#Post#: 16945--------------------------------------------------
A picture
By: Plagosus Date: January 18, 2020, 4:35 am
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HTML https://i.postimg.cc/PqdKk1bh/KREMBH-cr.jpg
HTML https://postimg.cc/FYn0ydnn
I find this picture interesting. Before I say why I should like
to know what it says to others.
#Post#: 16946--------------------------------------------------
Re: A picture
By: db105 Date: January 18, 2020, 5:00 am
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I hadn't seen it before. I like it, it's very Norman Rockwell.
#Post#: 16948--------------------------------------------------
Re: A picture
By: stevieweeks Date: January 18, 2020, 7:38 am
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It is an interesting picture..
Probably from the early 1920s and certainly in the United
Kingdom, it shows a little boy being very publicly smacked upon
his bottom, presumably by his father...
The audience is varied, the boy and his father seem to be of the
lower middle class, while there are an evident mixture of
classes in the crowd, from working class boys in caps and
overalls, to the foreground boy in his natty sailor suit.
Finally, the gentry/aristocracy is represented by the wealthy
young couple driving by in their expensive sports coupé, with
the young lady wearing a stylish (and horribly dangerous)
trailing scarf à la Isadora Duncan...
This varied crowd from all classes is watching the punishment
of the little miscreant with active and visible glee, pointing
to the pervasiveness of corporal punishment among all classes
one hundred years ago.
Even Dobbin, the cart horse in the background, appears to be
enjoying the process...
Sorry for being a boring, pedantic twat again... Stevie knows he
is an awful pain in the gluteus maximus and all...
#Post#: 16950--------------------------------------------------
Re: A picture
By: Jack Date: January 18, 2020, 8:12 am
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I was going to just 'check' Stevie's comments, since he said
pretty much everything I was thinking, but I couldn't support
his last line.
I feel sorry for the youth in trouble, but I do find 'corporal
punishment as a spectator sport' an amusing idea.
#Post#: 16951--------------------------------------------------
Re: A picture
By: db105 Date: January 18, 2020, 8:18 am
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To be fair, it does not look like a very harsh spanking...
#Post#: 16954--------------------------------------------------
Re: A picture
By: ivor Date: January 18, 2020, 9:07 am
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While I like Stevie's analysis of the picture, an online search
shows that the artist lived in Pennsylvania. Thus it seems to me
the picture must be US set rather than UK.
#Post#: 16955--------------------------------------------------
Re: A picture
By: stevieweeks Date: January 18, 2020, 9:35 am
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The car is right hand drive and is driving on the left... note
the direction the horse and buggy is going behind the car...
Although US produced right hand drive cars were relatively
common in the period (Pierce-Arrow produced them until 1921)
there is no doubt that the coupé is driving on the left and this
definitely precludes the scene being set in North America ...
The houses also are characteristically British in style, as is
the smartly dressed gentleman driver of the drophead coupé.
Stevie feels that the fact that this was a US artist may account
for the eclectic mix of classes in the crowd... he set the
picture in the UK, but was drawing a US crowd... the teen in the
boater also looks typically North American as well...
#Post#: 16957--------------------------------------------------
Re: A picture
By: David M. Katz Date: January 18, 2020, 10:54 am
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I will defer to Stevie's excellent anaysis.
But . . . why is the house for sale? I think that means
something.
#Post#: 16958--------------------------------------------------
Re: A picture
By: stevieweeks Date: January 18, 2020, 11:04 am
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Stevie just noticed that the boy in the foreground is
barefoot... in this type of neighbourhood in Britain this would
be highly unusual...
You would typically only see barefoot children in pretty bad
slum districts in the UK... but in North America, barefoot boys
were fairly common during the summer months even in middle class
areas...
This furthers the point that the artist is Pennsylvanian but
deliberately setting the picture in England...
#Post#: 16960--------------------------------------------------
Re: A picture
By: Plagosus Date: January 18, 2020, 11:32 am
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I go away and do research and when I come back others have got
in before me!
I agree with Stevie's comments and analysis. I would just add
that I am not sure English boys were wearing plus fours in the
inter war years or for that matter at any time. My first
impression was that it is an American scene mainly because the
group of characters on the left look American. If you draw a
line from top left to bottom right the south west looks US while
the north east looks England. However, the car and houses place
the scene very firmly in England.
The artist failed to carry out the same meticulous research that
Stevie does for his stories.
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