This is ‘Girl at mirror’ painted in 1954 by Norman Rockwell. It was used for The Saturday Evening Post magazine.

The painting is very realistic. We can see a girl sitting on a little red chair looking at herself in the mirror. The mirror is the center of the painting, it is in the image but also is the image itself because without it we couldn’t have seen the girl’s face. The large mirror is not on a wall but on the floor, supported by a chair. We can imagine the girl was not able to see herself entirely.On the ground there is a red lipstick, a hairbrush, some face powder and a doll. There is a magazine on the girl’s knees, open to a page where we can see Jane Russell, a Hollywood Star.

We can imagine that the girl wants to look like a woman because she put makeup and a white dress on. We can guess that the girl doesn’t see what she would like to see when looking at a mirror. Her doll, which is on the left as if the girl decided to leave her childhood behind, does not appear in the mirror so we can think that the girl doesn’t want the doll to be in the reflection. The girl has braids in her hair and put them in a bun. The makeup on the ground makes us think of toys on the ground when children play with them. The girl looks like she’s thinking and looks a bit worried as if she never will look like the women on her magazine.

I think the painter brilliantly illustrates the opposition between being a girl and a women. Even Even colours are in opposition. The colours used are dark and brown, except for the girl who is like a soft white light. The child is pure but the world around her is dark and gloomy.