Judge — June 3, 1922 — page 3: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# "Perpetual Motion!" — Judge Magazine, June 3, 1922 This illustration by Robert Patterson depicts a humorous domestic scene titled "Perpetual Motion." A man in a checkered suit leaps energetically over a bed where a woman reclines, while cherubs or cupids hover above. The scene appears to satirize married life and sexual vigor—playing on the period's fascination with perpetual motion machines (impossible devices that run forever without external energy). The joke likely mocks the contradiction between marital exhaustion and idealized romantic expectations, or perhaps pokes fun at husbands' attempts to maintain youthful energy and desire within marriage. The cartoon reflects 1920s attitudes toward marriage, leisure, and domesticity for a middle-class audience.