This is a post war magazine cover depicting a Christmas meal. At first glance it seems to be a regular family Christmas. What appears to be the title of this image changes this view and would have been controversial and highly sensitive at the time, as during the post war era, spying was a genuine concern. For Britain and the US. I was thrown off by this choice as it gives the images a completely different meaning and confuses me greatly as to how it could relate to the image. I wonder if this is the title or just badly placed.
The first image shows a happy family meal, Christmas judging by the tree in the background.
The second image shows the happy meal turned into chaos.
It seems that time has passed between the two images. Enough to have eaten the Christmas dinner and crackers to have been pulled (the time on the clock on the right seems to support this). The scene has now become chaotic and hostile, whereas it had been happy and serene before. This could possibly be due to the fact that the kids had too much sugar, or maybe someone said something that wasn’t liked.
In the first image it looks as though the girl in the dress is being welcomed to the meal, so possibly a guest. Things in the room are also neat and orderly but later become very disarrayed, suggesting an interaction with the objects has occurred. Whether this was an energetic, sugar filled buzz or rough and temper filled, I am unsure. Either way the little girl at the back isn’t enjoying herself as she is plugging her ears to block out the noise. She also seems to be crying which would lend itself to the theory that some kind of altercation has happened. The woman’s face in the second image doesn’t seem to portray too much distress so it is hard to tell what she is thinking or feeling.
I believe this image is meant to hold some political meaning, though what this message is meant to be, I am unsure. If the spy title is the name of this image then the meaning becomes slightly clearer, however how the image relates to that message evades me.
Illustration log 