In defense of Norman Rockwell

[james_davis_nicoll]

From a discussion of the American War! on! Christmas!:

But what she was really doing in the first instance, though, was standing up for America's aggrieved white Christians, a cohort that's watched in frustration as ethnic populations have grown in size and political power, causing Norman Rockwell's America to fade before their eyes.

Now it is true Rockwell's American includes scenes like this:




But not only is that a reference to FDR's Four Freedom's speech, Rockwell's America also included scenes like this:

Comments

[nojay.livejournal.com]

I wonder about that first picture -- was the white-haired old Granny on steroids or what? Look at her stance, the way's she's handling a 20-kilo load of bird and stuffing at arm's length without apparent effort. Is she using a powered exoskeleton or is this just Thanksgiving on Planet Krypton?

[fridgepunk.livejournal.com]

Hoverturkey.

Also: the first image is more of a thanksgiving image than a christmas one, isn't it?

[graydon saunders (from livejournal.com)]

People who start doing heavy manual labour as children are like that.

You don't see very much of it anymore, but in the 1960s -- I am guessing wildly at the date of the painting from the salt shakers -- you'd be looking at people who started life when about a third of the population was employed in agriculture, so it's quite possible said matriarch has lived a life that involved picking rocks out of fields when she was six.

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

Alton Brown pointed that out--in one of his turkey episodes (the "deep fried turkey" one), he showed what happened immediately after. Pandemonium--the bird fell, the table was ruined.

[neowolf2.livejournal.com]

It's a Potemkin turkey, just a shell concealing an empty interior.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

You're missing the strength in the biceps and wrists. Nowadays, we're used to seeing people who have more definition -- but that woman is STRONG.

She's also younger than you think -- early fifties at the outside, I bet, and she's got the kinds of shoulders, biceps, and forearms that you get from that kind of cooking.

Note, too, how her right sleeve is bunched up at the top, and it doesn't come down as far as the left -- that happened when her arm flexed at the start of the motion and her bicep and shoulder shoved the sleeve up. Her right arm is locked out in a strong position; the weight of the bird is actually hanging off her shoulder.

And, as has been pointed out, this is just a freeze-frame of a motion, anyway.

But, yeah. That granny could certainly beat me at arm-wrestling, anyway. I mean, if I got back to the gym, I bet I could build up my strength enough to beat her, but it would take three to six months.

[avram]

And there doesn’t seem to be space for that platter on the table, and nobody’s reaching out to move stuff aside.

[carbonel]

There's also the issue in my (admittedly limited) esperience, the turkey is seldom carved at the table, because it's a fairly messy process, and additional room is useful.

[rwpikul.livejournal.com]

To add to the other points: That bird probably isn't as heavy as you think. Remember that it isn't even going to be a 'big-breasted bronze' never mind the 'big-breasted white' that is the current norm. The body cavity is going to be much larger than you see on modern birds.

[agharta75.livejournal.com]

Thanksgiving dinners at my aunt's house actually did look like that picture, complete with curtains, wallpaper, picture frame, and grandparents at the head of the table next to the window.

[joenotcharles.livejournal.com]

Did it also include the children at the head of the table leering creepily at the people at the foot, as if to say, "After we devour this bird, you're next?"

[scott-sanford.livejournal.com]

It looks a lot like dinner at my grandparents' house when I was a kid, too. The "Norman Rockwell America" is a stereotype, but stereotypes develop because they're over-generalizations of things that actually exist.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Rockwell may have ultimately been poorly served by working for the Saturday Evening Post. I recall reading somewhere recently that he eventually chafed at their content guidelines.

[seth ellis (from livejournal.com)]

Also poorly served by the fact that his career precisely paralleled the importation of the Modernist avant-garde from Europe. His aspirational middle-class content was very Modern, and also was the perfect example of what Modernist art was supposed to scorn. He didn't get any real critical attention beyond knee-jerk dismissal until well after he was dead.

There was a pretty good cover article about him in the Smithsonian, a couple of months ago.

[chris-gerrib.livejournal.com]

The people pining for "Rockwell's America" tend to gloss over the reality of the period. Many of them were small children at the time (or not even born) and so what they really want is what they remember. This remembrance is heavily influenced by 1950s TV, in which "Four Freedoms" were not seen.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

For me, the time of innocent dreams and futuristic fantasies was what most older people seem to remember as the horror-world of Jimmy Carter's America.

Where's my universal metrication?!?!

[keithmm.livejournal.com]

.

[agharta75.livejournal.com]

That's Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman (top to bottom).

[oystermato.livejournal.com]

oh yeah fucking great. the glowing White Savior has come to rescue us colored folk.

[bruce munro (from livejournal.com)]

I'm really not seeing why Black, Asian, Hispanic, interracial or gay grandparents can't do an equally good job of serving turkey to large families.

(Definitely a 50s - early 60s meal; look how vegetables are represented on the table by a few anemic stalks of celery. :) )

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

1943, actually. And when your meat is rationed and most of what you're eating is vegetables from your own Victory Garden, the fantasy of not having to have them is real pleasant. . . :)

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Howabout one of my favorite views of what proper femininity looks like?


The people who long for Norman Rockwell's America (without actually knowing what that means) rarely think that "Well, yeah, but you should have seen the other guy" is an appropriate message to give to girls.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

I think my favorite detail there (I'd say "period detail", but I guess it wasn't period detail to him at the time) is the PRINCIPAL sign in solid Futura letters on the door. That is so right.

[wild-patience.livejournal.com]

We saw the exhibit of his work last year in Sacramento, California. It is a most impressive body of work.

When I look at the top painting, I can't help but think of Anya: "I know a ritual sacrifice when I see it."

If anything's been "hidden" about Norman Rockwell it's this....

[jane petrick (from livejournal.com)]

May I suggest that an important aspect of Rockwell's work that does reflect a real and ongoing concern in American life has been strangely overlooked in virtually all commentary on the man.

If Norman Rockwell was depressed about anything, it was about the level of racial injustice in the world and, what seemed to him, his often thwarted or "hidden" attempts to confront it. My book on Rockwell, "Hidden in Plain Sight: The Other People in Norman Rockwell's America" which also came out this fall (to much less fanfare than Deborah Solomon's), addresses this theme. The back cover quotes Rockwell: "I just wanted to do something important."

Failure to address this very salient aspect of Rockwell's life and work until now might just be another example of a reluctance to turn any mirror on the troubling, "non-artsy" issue of race. Rarely does it make money for gallery owners or make for good party conversation.