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Cousin Reginald Goes to the Country
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Cousin Reginald Goes to the Country, this Norman Rockwell painting, appeared on the cover of The Country Gentleman published August 25, 1917.
The Country Gentleman was published by Curtis Publishing Company. The masthead billed it as "The Oldest Agricultural Journal in the World." Curtis Publishing also published The Saturday Evening Post.
This illustration was Rockwell's first to appear on The Country Gentleman's cover. This was also the first appearance anywhere of Rockwell's Reginald cast of characters. This first installment continued as a well received series based on those characters that spanned over a year.
Cousin Reginald Goes to the Country
This first appearance of city cousin Reginald Claude Fitzhugh and country cousins Rusty and Tubby Doolittle sets the pace for the whole series. Reginald will be the fall guy in most of the paintings. Rusty, the older country cousin, will pull the pranks. Tubby, like the viewers, will be amused by Rusty and Reginald.
In this painting, Norman Rockwell conveys two concepts extremely well.
This painting was only one of 34 Norman Rockwell Country Gentleman covers; here is the list of more Norman Rockwell Country Gentleman scans.
Here is the complete list of all Norman Rockwell magazine covers.
The first concept Rockwell enables the viewer to visualize is speed. The wagon, driven by Rusty, is flying down that bumpy dirt road as fast as the horse can pull it. And Rusty is still trying to go faster! Just look at the dirt flying up around the wheel visible in the painting.
Rusty's hat is trying to blow off, Reginald's hat has blown off, and Tubby is holding his hat firmly on his head. The ears on Patsy the dog and Reginald's scarf are both blown straight back.
That wagon is moving!
This brings us to the Norman Rockwell's second concept in this painting: fear.
Cousin Rusty is obviously an old hand at driving the wagon at top speed. Neither Tubby or Patsy seem affected by the speed. They have both ridden with Rusty many times before.
Cousin Reginald, on the other hand, looks very concerned, if not downright afraid. He looks very stiff. He has a rigid grip on the seat. He is not smiling like the other boys are. Reginald is not having a good time.
It would seem from the outset of the series that the country cousins are determined to teach their country cousin a lesson. That lesson is that country life is different from city life.
Norman Rockwell also learned and loved that lesson as a child. Perhaps that is where he drew inspiration for the Cousin Reginald series of paintings .
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