Art Focus: Norman Rockwell “Marriage Counselor”

The famous American artist depicted everyday American life and current social issues. Like many of his paintings, it first appeared as an illustration that was supposed to decorate the October 1963 issue of The Saturday Evening Post, but for some reason was not published.

The painting depicts a young married couple, between whom a cat has clearly run. An acute conflict ended in physical violence, as evidenced by an impressive bruise covering almost the entire eye of the husband, as well as a bandaged finger on the right hand of the wife.

Most likely, the couple is not going to get divorced, otherwise why would they need to resort to the services of a family psychologist. It looks like the wife went a little overboard with aggression. She looks at her husband from under her brows with a slightly guilty look. While working on the painting, Norman Rockwell took at least 70 photographs with different male and female models.

Joyce Schiller, director of the Rockwell Center for American Visual Studies, believes that the artist deliberately created a rather unusual pin for his wife. At first glance, it looks like a flower-shaped jewelry, but upon closer inspection, the pin looks like the uniform of a Japanese samurai warrior. And doesn’t this little amusement underscore the real meaning of this illustration – that the wife, no matter how remorseful she may seem, is sitting calmly next to her husband and actually finds it all quite funny.

Indeed, her head is tilted so that she can leer at the black eye she gave him. The right side of her mouth is slightly raised, as if she were smirking. Note also that the index finger of her right hand is wrapped in a bandage – like a valiant samurai who has been honorably wounded in battle.