I chose Ben Shahn’s picture portraying two young boys watching a puppet show. What immediately struck me was not the picture itself, but rather where the photo was taken. In West Virginia. A state plagued by poverty throughout its history. Indeed, NPR did a segment of a white family in West Virginia which had taken a photo with Lyndon Baines Johnson around the birth of the Great Society, and because of the failed roll-out of the Great Society, lived in ways mostly unchanged.
Looking you see two boys. One whose face tells a story, the other whose body tells the story.
The first boy, to the left, you’ll see is wearing a shirt, with primarily Anglo-Saxon features, particularly a small ear and nose, one can assume, albeit phenotype is weak evidence on its own, he is the descendant of better off people. However, look at his eye, it is bruised or suffering from deep bags. His exhaustion tells a story of stress during youth. Perhaps his father is overseas and he is worried. He’s got a band along his wrist, one would assume a watch, but I have my reservations. His light complexion suggests he is less a field-hand than the boy to his left/our right, and thus his financial situation can be assumed better than the boy to his right.
As for the boy on the left, he is young and muscular. He is deeply tanned, with large ears. These are pretty recessive features, which tend to be more pronounced in secluded communities, Jews are an example of this. I’d hazard a guess that he is a field hand, as he is far too clean to be a coal miner, which would be my go-to assumption for a young person in 1939.
Notice I focus on the analytical rather than the art behind this picture, the reason being the art is fairly simple. In terms of composure it is unexceptional, defying the normal rules of photographic setup, accomplishing its goal nonetheless. The simple and relaxed feel behind the two boys is mimicked in the relaxed feel of the photograph. It is not overwhelmingly traditional, nor is it overwhelmingly shocking in format. It is a time of relaxation, an eye of the storm between the Great Depression and WWII.
