Contest Entry: Cream of Wheat (1918)

[dandyads]

Comments

[suzycat.livejournal.com]

LAWD.

I think I understand the last one now. Cream of Wheat is SO VERY good that it will EVEN turn black people away from watermelon ... bloody HELL.

I just cannot imagine what it must have been like seeing ads like this about people like you all the time....

[pikkewyntjie.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the explanation because I couldn't figure it out. I thought it was an abandoned child eating Cream of Wheat and thought, wow, that sure is depressing. Well, it is, but not in the way I thought. Oy!

[suzycat.livejournal.com]

Well that's my assumption based on the old watermelon stereotype.

In some ways it's such a lovely painting too, the delicate shading, the beautiful way the little boy is rendered. But, um.

[pikkewyntjie.livejournal.com]

I agree about the composition. If you remove the ugly cultural context, it's quite poignant.