Life — September 23, 1915 — page 9: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# "The Great Art" - Life Magazine Satire This page satirizes advertising's pretensions to artistry. The cartoon depicts a corpulent man in striped clothing reclining luxuriously among flowers—a parody of classical artistic poses. The accompanying text argues that while painters and writers guard their "secrets" and claim noble artistic pursuits, advertising copywriters are the true "geniuses" of their era, yet they conceal their work behind commercialism rather than claiming artistic credit. The satire's point: advertisers possess genuine creative talent but refuse to acknowledge it as "art" because advertising is purely commercial. The reclining figure mocks both the pretension of "fine artists" and the hypocrisy of ad-men who deny their own artistry while producing sophisticated persuasive work. The text concludes that real artistic integrity means acknowledging one's own product's merit regardless of public opinion.