The Pinch of Poverty

I would say that the main contributing factor to poverty is a lack of intelligence which prohibits people from getting well paying jobs or jobs at all. Intelligence is especially difficult to get when one is born into poverty and does not have the money to obtain their education. This is why the poor tend to remain poor.

The artist uses pale, dark, shadowy colors to display poverty in a negative light.

Thomas Benjamin Kennington, the artist of "The Pinch of Poverty," is showing in this painting that poverty is rough, unforgiving, and stressful. Two ways he shows this is that the subjects are sitting in a rain shower, which we can tell from the reflection on the street, and the clothes that the subjects are wearing are dark and bland, they give the audience a sense that there is something left to be desired by the subjects.

In the painting the brightest things are the flowers the girl and boy are holding which symbolizes that the best part of their lives does not even come from themselves. Also, the faces and skin of the subjects are pale and emotionless compared to the average person; this exhibits their lack of happiness.