Judge — July 8, 1922 — page 22: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This illustration depicts two women in an intimate indoor scene, apparently discussing a compliment from a critic. One woman, wearing an ornate headpiece and fur stole, tells the other that a "highbrow critic" complimented her arms by comparing them to Venus de Milo (the famous classical sculpture). The joke plays on the irony that Venus de Milo is famously *armless*—missing both arms. The critic's supposed compliment is therefore backhanded or nonsensical, yet the woman takes it as genuine praise, demonstrating either her obliviousness or her vanity in accepting flattery without scrutiny. This satirizes both pretentious art criticism and women's susceptibility to empty flattery dressed in classical or intellectual language.