Rockwell Distinctively Visual Analysis

As generations progress, individuals tend to engage in contrasting practices which stimulate changes in society that provoke clashes of personality that affect unity as a whole. In the painting, Rockwell illustrates a young man and his father waiting at a train station as the son sets off to attend college. It is evident that in the painting Rockwell is able to reflect not only the immediate moment, but also the way society adapts and reacts to its new changes. The dark shades in the painting contrast with the lighter, white shade that the young boy is wearing; the father and the painting itself are composed of darker colors that give off a melancholy feel, whereas the boy in white gives off an amicable sense, that displays the differences …show more content…
The father wears a dirty, blue collared shirt which embodies a stereotypical men in the rural areas of America throughout the 1950’s, whereas his son, dressed in a white suit, exemplifies the new generations that began to influence and amend older customs. Most men at the time worked in manual labor, they didn’t have the same education that men of new generations could now receive and thus a gap in society begins to form between the hard working laborers and the young educated businessman. Individuals who for many years worked physically to make a living, now provide their children with greater advantages and opportunities, that contradict with their norms. Additionally, in the painting, Rockwell puts emphasis on the body communication of the two characters to resemble the way in which they respond to such progress and opportunities. The father is leaning over and looking down to the right, while the young man sits up sturdy and looks to the left. It seems that the son is looking towards the future, past the old kept traditional values of his father, he is eager and content, but his father is not, he looks troubled as he looks towards his son who will become the modern