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

[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.

[supergee.livejournal.com]

He made an elegant reply with The Connoiseur

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Yep. It's KIND of a subtle comment, until you think about it and it becomes blatant. The Pollock-style painting is actually really good by the standards that you judge it -- it's got vibrancy, use of color, and emotion.

In other words, he's letting the world know that, if that WAS his style, if he CHOSE to do that, he could, and be damn good at it. But, no, he's not ACTUALLY painting that painting -- he's merely painting a PAINTING of that painting.

It's a pretty funny gag, and a damn effective show-off boast all at the same time.

[owlmirror36.livejournal.com]

And it reminds of what I read not too long ago (maybe everyone else knows it already?): that the CIA deliberately sponsored the promotion of non-representational art, like that of Pollock, because apparently promoting ideological causes by the use of visual art was a commie thing.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

The funny thing is that the Birchers insisted that the non-representational art was all a commie plot. (It all began with Kandinsky and the Soviet Constructivists, see.)

[nelc.livejournal.com]

Damn, the next picture is pretty powerful, and one I've not seen before — Southern Justice (Murder in Mississippi).

[agent-mimi.livejournal.com]

It wasn't entirely knee-jerk, but rather a lack of critical attention at all. The revisionist claims that he was really good, it was just those big meanie critics who said otherwise are popular nowadays, but it's not particularly true. Rockwell was an illustrator, which is painfully obvious in his visually flat treatments (which is where the copious "he painted from photographs" complaints come in) and the occasional strange facial expression that was the bane of every commercial illustrator of his era. If the subject matter he took on was politically pertinent or artistically clever, his approach to it rarely was.

[seth ellis (from livejournal.com)]

As a formal artist, yeah. There's a difference between "good" and "worthy of critical attention," though, and Rockwell's worth talking about now in a way that he wasn't at the time--though he deserved more credit than he got, just for how efficiently he told a certain kind of story. He encapsulated a certain kind of bourgeois aspiration that Modernism was reacting against, both in his art and in his pragmatic mass-market career. Even that much was worth talking about at the time, but no one did.

But yes, efforts to fit him into the grand old tradition of American naturalism, like the Hudson Valley painters and whatnot, don't go so well.

ETA: In fact, one of the things you can see in the images in this thread is that he isn't one hundred percent sure how to paint black people. He isn't comfortable with how to transition from the edges of their bodies to the background.

[keithmm.livejournal.com]

The picture with the kids and the moving van shows one of his shortcomings, when you mention "flat". Everything in that image looks pasted on, especially the kids. There's no sense of them being in an environment (the lack of shadows on the ground is really noticeable to me because I do 3D work and having someone look like they're hovering or pasted on stands out).

On the other hand, "Southern Justice" looks "real": the three figures are in that environment, touching the ground, throwing shadows. So he could do it when he wanted to.