When looking through The Owl I came across an interesting page that depicted a man playing pool while surrounded by a small crowd. All the characters depicted seem to be of the working class except the man himself. While those surrounding him seem to be fairly ragged and unrefined the man himself is very polished and vibrant. The text on the very top of the page seems to indicate that the scene is somewhere in Ireland. The top right hand corner reads: “Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction for Ireland, The Metropolitan School of Art, Kildare Street, Dublin” which would lead me to think that this was some sort of an ad for the Metropolitan School of Art. The only two characters not completely grey washed are the pool player and a raggedy man on his right, which almost seems to pose the subliminal question of which character the viewer would rather be. The advertisement itself can be found on pages of an May 1919 edition of The Owl.
This piece was particularly interesting to me because it seemed so distant in time yet so close to modern advertisements. Published in 1919 this advertisement is nearly a hundred years old yet so familiar. The ad seemed to be screaming if you go to The Metropolitan School of Art you too can be refined and the center of attention much like most modern ads do now. We always see well defined models and hot chick using various products as if the product will somehow make all of us beautiful and blessed. I never before realized that the very basic advertising techniques being used today were so far back reaching (in their exact same form and structure). It was really nifty finding this ad.
Due: Project 1
Interesting analysis of this
Interesting analysis of this ad. Just a suggestion: you should place the link at the beginning of the post so your reader can view the ad before reading your discussion.