I have a framed print of this painting up in my law library, but I didn’t know the back story until now. I always assumed that the clerk was thinking wistfully of either a lost love, or of the supper waiting for him. The bride to be standing on tip toes to fill out the form is a nice touch, as is the cat at the feet of the clerk. Cuspidors were once ubiquitous in government offices and court rooms, with stains around them indicating varying levels of marksmanship. Our lives are mixtures of grandeur beyond our comprehension and the prosaic beneath our notice, and often only time separate out the two.
Rockwell was so much more than the populist illustrator label he was assigned.
Somewhere, some rube who bought a banana taped to a wall is sneering that this isn’t *real* art.
I couldn’t care less about that opinion 🙂