Judge — May 17, 1924 — page 19: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This page satirizes two prominent illustrators of the era—Neysa McMein and Coles Phillips—by reimagining famous artworks in their distinctive styles. The top image shows the Mona Lisa reinterpreted by McMein as a fashionable 1920s woman: flapper-style clothing, bobbed hair, and a modern pose with a cigarette holder instead of da Vinci's subtle mystery. The bottom shows Whistler's Mother rendered by Phillips in his signature style: an elegant, simplified silhouette emphasizing graceful lines and fashion rather than psychological depth. The satire suggests these popular commercial illustrators would strip away the original paintings' artistic substance, replacing timeless human complexity with contemporary fashion and glamour. It's gentle mockery of how commercial illustration trends could trivialize canonical masterpieces.