“Saying Grace”

Saying Grace MAY BE THE BEST known of all Norman Rockwell's Post covers, and it is not hard to see why it has remained such a great favorite. The idea of the small boy and his grandmother thanking God for their food in a seedy railroad-station cafeteria was custom-made for Rockwell's particular skills, and he did not fail to make the most of the opportunity.

The environment is superbly evoked. It is essential that it should be if the incident is to touch the viewer in the way it is intended to. The detail of the Juniper Street Horn and Hardart cafeteria in Philadelphia (the railroad station out the window was added) is wonderful, and we should note the still-life arrangement in the left foreground. The cold coffee in the clumsy restaurant-ware cup and the soggy cigarette ends lying in the saucer are somehow exactly what was needed to set off the simple piety of the old woman and the child. Nothing could be more down to earth than cold coffee and soggy cigarette butts. (The boy at the table with his back to the window is Rockwell's oldest son, Jerry.)

Much of Rockwell's early work was carefully planned to read as a powerful design against the page on which it was intended to be seen. In this painting, as in many later examples, Rockwell used instead a "snapshot" approach. The figures cut off at both sides of the canvas emphasize this. Rockwell was borrowing from the art of the photographer to give the impression that this was a real incident that he happened to capture at just the right moment. He leaves us with the feeling that we are witnesses to the event.