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He was anything but a realist. Due in part to the demands of his patrons, his body of work is principally a celebration of dreamy smarm and kitsch from a Pollyanna world of totem ideals that never really existed.
He was anything but a realist. Due in part to the demands of his patrons, his body of work is principally a celebration of dreamy smarm and kitsch from a Pollyanna world of totem ideals that never really existed.
He was anything but a realist. Due in part to the demands of his patrons, his body of work is principally a celebration of dreamy smarm and kitsch from a Pollyanna world of totem ideals that never really existed.
Quote:
Originally Posted by G1..
I disagree..........
You're both right. He was certainly good at the technical aspects of his art, and was capable of some very moving works, but entirely too much of his work consisted of portraying people as bumpkins and hayseeds, all looking like they're saying "Garsh!".
You're both right. He was certainly good at the technical aspects of his art, and was capable of some very moving works, but entirely too much of his work consisted of portraying people as bumpkins and hayseeds, all looking like they're saying "Garsh!".
I happen to like his approach to the world. What's wrong with bumpkins and hayseeds? I grew up in the 1950s in MA, and my world was exactly like that.
Not a problem, but the images you posted are from after his long "Saccharine" period working for the Boy Scouts and Saturday Evening Post.
With all due respect so what?The complaint was about his only "happy time"images"being anything but a realist"and I used two example of serious "present day(his day) issues he was addressing."Being real.
I happen to like his approach to the world. What's wrong with bumpkins and hayseeds? I grew up in the 1950s in MA, and my world was exactly like that.
People don't get that ! I spent my youth in Mass from 1961 through 1975 in and around Stockbridge and those people were real.Arlo Guthrie tells a great story about the making of the movie "Alice's Restaurant",Arlo could not understand why anyone would want to make a movie about his song and the Director Arthur Penn,said it was becuase he lived in Stockbridge and those are real people ,he knew them all!Yes he had them as models but Mr. Rockwell knew how to make a picture tell a story,you didn't have to guess!
He was anything but a realist. Due in part to the demands of his patrons, his body of work is principally a celebration of dreamy smarm and kitsch from a Pollyanna world of totem ideals that never really existed.
That's true, especially in his early years.
When Rockwell began, and he began very young, as he was only 19 when he sold his first illustration, there was intense competition among the artists who created the covers and internal illustrations for America's most popular magazines.
Those magazines did not want controversy. At all. Rockwell entered the market at a time when there was a great wave of nostalgia for the 1890s, one of those Golden Age decades, and as a working artist, he had a young family to feed, so he developed several kitschy themes that always got him another cover job; the boy fishing with his dog, and/or his friends. The adorable little baby girl in pigtails. Amusing old codgers.
But he became a realist as he developed his painting skills. While he had a natural ability to capture emotion, his ability to become subtle in emotional portrayal only came with age, maturity, and a lot of OJT practice.
It served him very well, too. After the end of WWII, the mood of the nation was different. Cute and smarmy didn't work as well as it once had. Rockwell still used kids, but his boy gone fishin' became a thing of the past.
Rockwell's kids weren't so emotionally simple any more. Think of the painting of the triumphant little girl with a black eye, grinning happily on a bench outside the principal's office, where her shocked mother is glimpsed through a crack in the office door, aghast that her little sweetie got in a fight.
We all knew who the winner was in that kid fight,
That's a more complicated concept and a harder one to sell. And a harder one to pull off, too.
I had forgotten about this thread. Good post bandjomike and I agree with much of your assessment but I knew some of the people in Stockbridge that Mr Rockwell painted and they were real people .Another poster said those times that Rockwell painted "never" existed and all I can say is I know for sure that some place's in America...they did.
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