“A picture worth a thousand gossips”

We finish this theoretical part of week 1 with a lighthearted cartoon called “The Gossips” by Norman Rockwell (1894 – 1978).

(Here you can see the image in higher quality)

This picture shows how a story gets re-interpreted each time it is told. In the end the story comes back to the first ‘gossiper’ and she is totally surprised that she herself has become the subject.

In the video below, Stephanie Haboush Plunkett, the Deputy Museum Director / Chief Curator of the Norman Rockwell Museum, conveys how Rockwell struggled to illustrate the concept of a changing gossip story. It gives insight in the process to reach the final quality in this beautiful picture.

Also, the picture shows the different type of people that talk to each other, all embedded in a culture from the past: pipe and cigar, hat and hair fashion, and wired phones.