“The Partygoers”

ONE OF THE INCIDENTAL PLEASURES of Rockwell's paintings derives from their small, documentary touches—details that sometimes manage to conjure up an entire era. How many of us remember, for example, that milkmen often carried flashlights when they delivered their wares? When Rockwell painted this cover he was merely trying to be true to life in portraying this milkman. In retrospect, however, the flashlight stands for a whole vanished life-style. In a time when we buy our milk in cardboard cartons plucked from the refrigerated shelves of supermarkets, we have no milkmen to stop on the way home from parties.

In its own quiet way this cover deals with class distinctions a subject we do not generally associate with Rockwell's art. The tradesman, forced to rise before dawn to earn his living, seems faintly disapproving of the young couple who can afford to spend the night on the town. Rockwell does not pass judgment, however. He simply records the scene with his usual impassive accuracy. No background is needed for this composition. Faces, clothes and postures tell us all we need to know.