I really admire artists who can create images that just, somehow, tell a story wordlessly, and I think this painting from a 1956 Ford G350 truck brochure really does that. Something about the position of that man, the way his hand rests on the bedside, the posture, the stare, looking into that vast, empty truck bed, all of that somehow communicates the slow-burn confusion of someone who has no idea what happened to all the shit that was supposed to be in that truck.
It’s not just me, right? You see it too? He looks genuinely confused, even though we can’t see his face, but his body language is that of someone frozen in confusion.
It’s incredible. Even if it’s not intentional, which, let’s be honest, I doubt it is.
Seriously, though, where did everything go?
UPDATE: I saw some comments from people unaware of the Ford G-series of trucks, even speculating that I – me! – could have, somehow, made a typo and meant F350. I did not. Look:
These are Dutch-market Fords, but still. Ford G-series.
Apparently more than one link leaves your comment in moderation purgatory, and moderation seems to have gone to hell so here’s the first half of my held comment.
No, I think it is one of these
The Ford FK, short for “Ford Köln,” is a series of medium-duty trucks built by Ford of Germany in their Cologne (Köln) plant in two generations from 1951 until 1961. Apparently, the two-stroke diesel engines in the second generation were so bad that Ford Cologne left the truck business.
As described here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_FK