Chapter 28 Illustrated

As I plan on becoming a journalist, I find newspapers (especially particularly memorable historical ones) absolutely fascinating. With this in mind, I began to think of how hard it would be to be forced to read the various depressing headlines that must have appeared atop the news articles at this time. Since everyone used to read the newspaper, this was a major contribution to the all-around atmosphere of the time. In this vein, I decided to look up some of these old newspapers and discovered this image. Today, too, we have depressing headlines covering our media. However, up till this point, I believe that Americans had generally felt pretty stable and secure. This was a major blow to them, and I thought it would be interesting to include an image that portray this panic.

This painting, entitled "The Old Guitarist" and created by Pablo Picasso, is one of my all-time favorite works of art. In middle school, we had to pick an artist, do a report on them, paint one of their pictures (or in my case, make a ridiculous attempt), and create a story around that painting. It was one of my absolute favorite assignments of all my years in school. I picked Picasso, and fell completely in love with his pieces. Part of his Blue Period, "The Old Guitarist" portrays perfectly the tint of blue and grey that surrounded the lives of those trying to survive this daunting era.

Similar to the image of the despaired soldier of World War I, I also love this picture. Its grey gloom and somber feeling are exactly what I imagine when I think of the Great Depression. Plus, it's really interesting to see details. When it comes to old pictures, I love to look for small but defining characteristics, from the papers someone is holding to the way they carry themselves. As a writer, I automatically characterize each of the people shown in the pictures, casting them and building a story around them without even realizing it. Even so, it's hard to imagine a time when the Chamber of Commerce actually posted signs like this one. Although our economy isn't thriving at the moment, we can at least be grateful that we are living now, and not during the Age of Anxiety.