“Girl at Mirror” by Norman Rockwell, for the Saturday Evening Post cover in 1954.
This painting offers us an opportunity to discuss the between-ness of transitional stages in life, in particular here the moving from childhood to adulthood. The impending weight of womanhood on the girls’ shoulders, her discarded doll juxtaposed with lipstick and hairbrush. It says something about the pressures of beauty standards with its magazine image of Jane Russell and the forming of identity in this formative era of growing up when you are so worried about how the world perceives you, highlighted by her reflection staring back at her in the mirror.