This is a wonderful observation, and once you’ve noticed it you’ll see it all over the place. Artistic licence aside, which of these illustrators is a knitter, do you think?
illustration by Takeo Takei, dating from the 1920s, JapanBeatrix Potter, Appley Dapply’s Nursery Rhymes 1917Mariapia Franzoni Tomba (Italian, 1902-1978)Woman’s World Magazine cover art July 1918Alberto MonttMarjolein BastinSvjetlan JunakovicYusuke YonezuB. Twardowski, 1925Hilda Boswell. Caption reads: “Bob-tail helps to unwind the wool for his jersey”Governess by Louis Wain (1860-1939)DEVINEZ L’ALPHABET (1868–colored version, 1978) Théophile Schuler Midnight glove knitter in 1958. Al Parker,1906–19851937 – Needlecraft Home Arts Mela Koehler (Austrian, 1885–1960) ‘Woman Knitting,’ (1949) Henry Moore, using his “two-way sectional line method” of drawing.Home Arts Magazine September 1937. This student may be in trouble with her teacher, but she knows how to hold knitting needles.Ralph Pallen Coleman knitting (1892-1968) The Home Arts Magazine March 1935. Another woman in trouble for knitting. The cultural message is clear: Women should not be trusted to drive.
OTHER INSTANCES IN WHICH REALISM IS MODIFIED
Raindrops
There are instances, however, where a realistic portrayal of nature isn’t necessarily warranted. Raindrops are actually round when falling from the sky, but in the collective imagination a raindrop is, well, ‘tear drop’ shaped. Where does the teardrop shape even come from? Probably from the leg of moisture coming off a droplet as seen when running down a surface such as a cheek.
Big Walking Legs
You don’t see this so much in modern books, but it seems children of yesteryear marched everywhere. Could all of that marching in school have carried over into real life?
Manic-Enthusiasm
I can’t find the credit for this image and it may be a pie advertisement for all I know. 1950s advertisements featuring housewives were full of it. But we haven’t really seen these facial expressions since the 1970s Ladybird books.
1956from a Ruud Water Heater advertisement, in the October 1947 issue of Better Homes and Gardens magazine
CONTEMPORARY FICTION SET IN AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND (2023)
On paper, things look fine. Sam Dennon recently inherited significant wealth from his uncle. As a respected architect, Sam spends his days thinking about the family needs and rich lives of his clients. But privately? Even his enduring love of amateur astronomy is on the wane. Sam has built a sustainable-architecture display home for himself but hasn’t yet moved into it, preferring to sleep in his cocoon of a campervan. Although they never announced it publicly, Sam’s wife and business partner ended their marriage years ago due to lack of intimacy, leaving Sam with the sense he is irreparably broken.
Now his beloved uncle has died. An intensifying fear manifests as health anxiety, with night terrors from a half-remembered early childhood event. To assuage the loneliness, Sam embarks on a Personal Happiness Project: