Life, 1924-02-28 · page 4 of 36
Life — February 28, 1924 — page 4: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This cartoon satirizes fashionable portrait painters who flatter their wealthy subjects. The caption notes that a "portrait painter declines to paint the wife of one of our more recent plutocrats, on the ground that her features do not appeal to him"—a rare refusal in an era when wealthy patrons expected idealized depictions. The interior scene shows an elegant woman viewing framed portraits on the wall, suggesting the vanity market for commissioned society paintings. The satire targets both the pretensions of nouveau-riche clients demanding flattery and the complicity of artists in perpetuating false representations of wealthy subjects' appearances. It's a critique of the commercial art world's dishonesty and the culture of status-seeking among the newly wealthy.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
THINGS AS THEY ARE NOT A FASHIONABLE OF OUR MORE RECENT PLUTOCRATS. bo NOT PORTRAIT PAINTER DECLINES TO PAINT THE ON THE APPEAL wire HER OF ONE GROUND THAT FEATURES To mint The Protests of an Inoffensive Man was one who comment sym. days I |S the old »served without derisive my wife's simulated ardor for phony, Somewhat later, I paid her subscriptions to morning musicales without a word of levity, though I en joy making a brilliant remark occasion ally. When she of chamber went in for afternoons noth I had advanced hour of music came from that of her pose or the me to indicate ny opinion dining. I have spent a man’s honest number of evenings in and about the lobbies and smoking rooms of the opera An unbiased audit shows my rating for domestic forbearance in matters of musical art to be 99.4 plus, Therefore—- If I desire to take refuge in indiffer apathy, during the present vogue for the singing of spirit- uals when there ence, not to. say is occasion and also when there is no occasion, I believe I am amply justified by my record of fourteen years MeCready Huston After All These Years ATCH: And have you been suc- cessful in your affairs of the heart? Satcn: Very. [am still unmarried Life Lines REAT BRITAIN has the Russian Soviet All right!) What is it? as Radio is no miracle t recognized Government the candidate who for years has been able to hear the t any distance Four thousand cases of Scotch whisky, which had been held in bond in New York Prohibition, recently shipped to Glasgow By the w since were . how is the coal supply in Newcastle this year? LL It is generally conceded that it was a good thing for the sa A bad it didn't IL Automatic telephones are bring about a great saving 1 enable the subscriber expected to They elim inate the girl a to get his own wrong numbers. LL unn alarmed apot Dome. The according to oil The public is ssarily over the lease of T whole thing was dor oa Id veteran of the Civil War has asked Congress to grant him an honorable discharge from the army A ninety-yea: Won't these soldiers ever stop pestering our Government? JL It is announced that there are now 15,221,183 automobiles in the United States. It would be interesting to know just how many of these are able to pass a given pedestrian. LL “McAdoo will have the support of all movie people." —Nevws item If this includes all ex-wives he is as good as elected. AL A lady involved in a breach of promise suit has observed that “righteousness gets you nothing.” What has William H. Anderson to say to this? aL Ex-Secretary Fall refused to testify be fore the Senate on the ground that it might incriminate him. He should have thought of that in the first place. iL A logical successor to the American eagle as our national bird would be the stormy petrol ex-husbands and comicbooks.com