The Ouija Board by Norman Rockwell

May 1, 1920 Issue of The Saturday Evening Post

The Ouija Board, this Norman Rockwell painting, appeared on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post published May 1, 1920...
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This painting was Rockwell's twenty-ninth overall picture featured on the cover of The Post and the fourth Rockwell cover in 1920. The Post featured a Rockwell illustration on its cover eleven times in 1920.

The Ouija Board

In this painting, Norman Rockwell gives us a look at the seriousness and the trivial side of the occult.

Here we see a couple asking questions of an Ouija board. Ouija boards are also called talking boards and spirit boards. This device is used to ask questions of spirits. The spirits are supposed to guide the participants' hands on the planchette. This guidance produces the answers to asked questions.

We do not know what questions they are posing to the spirits. But we can observe that the young man is pushing the planchette towards "YES". He is watching the young woman to make sure she doesn't spy him influencing the spirits' answer.

The young woman is not looking at the board. She is hoping to get an answer from spirits. The young man wants a specific answer.

I wonder what the question is...
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Norman Rockwell's The Ouija Board (1920) Copyright © 1920 Saturday Evening Post & Curtis Publishing Company

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