Analyse en anglais "New Kids in the Neighbourhood"

This document is an oil painting. It's called « New kids in the Neighbourhood ». It dates back 1967 (just after civil rights acts) and it comes from a magazine : « Look magazine». It was painted by Norman Rockwell.

The scene takes place in a neighbourhood. It shows two groups of childs in the foregrounds : one black on the left (a boy and a girl) and one white on the right (two boys and a girl). Blacks childs seems to be brother and sisters, like Whites who seems to be from the same family too. Behind them, we can see a moving van and a white remover inside, moving some pieces of furniture (for once, Whites are in service at Blacks). In the top left hand corner, there's all the houses of the neighbourhood, they're all identicals. Whites childs are standing, staring at Blacks childrens and they are leaning towards them. They seems puzzled. We can also see, in the bottom left-hand corner, a lamp, an armchair, a carpet and some others furnitures. In the background, we see a man behind the window of his house, looking at this scene, like if it was something unbelievable.

Because of the the moving van, the position of Whites and the furnitures in the foreground, we supposed that coloured childs are, like the title say, « new in the neighbourhood ».

All the kids are well-dressed : the little black girl is wearing a light pink dress, just like her socks and her bow in her braids ; she's also wearing patent black shoes. She's holding a white cat in her arms. Her brother have a baseball glove, like one of the whites guys. The white girl wearing a bow, the same as the black girl. The other white kid seems to be a baseball player. The whites are holding a black puppy.

When we look at their position, the animals are the opposite of the childrens : whites childs are leaning towards black kids and the white cat is leaning towards the black puppy. It makes a contrast between Blacks and Whites

I think that the whites childs are intrigued by their new neighbours because at this time, it wasn't common for blacks people to move in « whites neighbourhood ». At the begining of segregation, it would not have be possible. We can see that these kids are not so different (the way they're dressed, the fact they like each other baseball...). Maybe those kids finally realize that they are not different, as they might have thought because of segregation. They've could of been seperate in the past, but now that segregation is over, a coloured people can finally be friend with a white people. That's something logical now, but at the time of segregation, it wasn't thinkable.

I think that this painting shows the beginnig of new life for coloured people. They can finally be a part of our « society ».

I really like this painting because of all the details. Even the colors are here for a reason and there's a lot of meaning behind this painting. I find this painting really tought-provoking and well-tought-out.

...