petermorwood:dongiovannitriumphant:A selection of very heterosexual sock ads by J. C. LeyendeckerLey
petermorwood:dongiovannitriumphant:A selection of very heterosexual sock ads by J. C. LeyendeckerLeyendecker’s art, whether ads for Interwoven Socks……or for Arrow Shirts and Collars……or for magazine covers……was IMO for sophisticated world-wise city dwellers what Norman Rockwell became for small-town Middle America. While Leyendecker did paint humorous, almost caricature characters, for the most part the people he portrays aren’t just good-looking, they’re well-educated (the Harvard-Princeton Ivy League look) and pre-Crash wealthy.The gay subtext - IMO it was there, though for every article I’ve read that says it was, there’s another that says it wasn’t - was a subtle one: if his viewers expected only to see heroic muscular sportsmen and elegant socialites, that was what they saw.However Leyendecker’s eye-lines often seem to hint at other than the obvious first impression, whether on a troop-ship……or at a race-course.Are the men looking at the nurse and the Gibson Girl, or are some of them more interested in each other? That’s the viewer’s choice.After all, these illustrations represent the social morés of America’s upper-middle class from a century ago, and the legacy of filthy-minded maniac Anthony Comstock was still going strong - yet because of that, there’s a possibility that any viewers who wondered how Leyendecker was “getting away with it” might conclude that continual “getting away with it” meant that no matter what they saw, felt or though, there was nothing to be getting away with. (That made more sense in my mind than when I wrote it down, but @dduane says it’s still coherent. “More or less.” Um. Thank you for the qualifier, I think…)On the flip-side, I’m reminded of a half-remembered character description from a 1970s novel whose title I can’t recall -“…(he) wore his homosexuality with such elegance and assurance that sophisticated people didn’t mindand simple people didn’t notice…”It does rather sum up Leyendecker’s gentlemen; maybe they is or maybe they isn’t, but it’s not obvious (to a 1920s eye) which is what. Neat, that.Rockwell seems to have inspired a whole subgenre of homely, folksy slice-of-life artists - Robert Berran, Amos Sewell, John Falter, Stevan Dohanos, Gordon Johnson - but Leyendecker’s art has a style, and a knowing wit, all its own. This one makes me think of Lord Henry Wootton putting Bad Ideas into the head of Dorian Gray……while this fan art is thinking of something that’s a Bad Idea (under Article 93 of the 1940 US Articles of War) but not too Different, either… :->Incidentally, it seems that Leyendecker’s art was instrumental in popularising Father Christmas / Santa Claus as a fat jolly bearded old chap in a white-fur-trimmed red suit, and New Year as an industrious baby… So there. -- source link
#neat#commercial art