The moments in our lives that are usually the most significant are the quiet moments, but we are usually too busy to notice.
–Kevin Rivoli
I’ve always liked Norman Rockwell paintings. They show a slice of life that is innocent and hopeful. Though I didn’t know, but am not surprised, there were many critics of his work who said that his work was “too idealistic, too nostalgic, too composed.”. My goodness! How cynical are some people?! If you show beauty, peace, and innocence, you are not portraying ‘reality’. They said that the America that he portrayed didn’t exist.
Fortunately, Kevin Rivoli, a photojournalist disputes that claim and has created his own book: In Search of Norman Rockwell’s America. In it, he puts side-by-side, some of the photographs that he has taken as part of his assignments and places them next to various Rockwell paintings, proving that Rockwell’s vision of America does exist.
I don’t own this book, but being a fan of Norman Rockwell, though not owning any of his paintings, I’m glad to see such a book. We need more idealists and humanitarians showing us that we still do have families, vacations, parades, picnics, and trips to the ball game. We need more photographers, painters, writers, etc. that look into those quite moments that many of us are too busy to see.
Probably, not only is this Norman Rockwell’s America, I’m sure that it exists all over! I think that I’ll probably purchase this book.
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6 Responses to “Norman Rockwell’s America”
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I couldn’t agree with you more. We need some optimism and hope. We focus on the bad and take the good for granted and there is a an awful lot of good out there if we just choose to see it.
I have always loved Rockwell’s paintings and have many prints I bought at Wal-mart for literally only a couple bucks each. When I think back to my earliest childhood memories, they ARE like Norman Rockwell works. That America surely does exist, and the quote you started with is why too many of us miss those moments. I believe Norman’s view and the one that we who believe that view see is one of perspective and child-like observance and hope. None of those are bad things.
What a neat idea for a photo project. I think there are Norman Rockwell moments everywhere. I will have to see if I can find a copy of the book at my local book store.
Oh dear, we Europeans are maybe forever spoiled. I didn’t know Norman Rockwell, but his images immediately triggered the impulse to dismiss them as Nazi art. You never had that, but think of “Pleasantville”, only force fed onto a whole people. That’s what Nazi art was. Images of healthy, patriotic people in a sane world. People loved that, it was part of the appeal of the Party. Only reality is not like that. Yes, it can be, but excluding everything else is a problem.
Not that I say Norman Rockwell was a Nazi or anyone liking his images is, but if you’ve grown up in a society with our history, you’ve learned to be wary about those tendencies, and you’ve also learned that this kind of imagery is still used by those who still or again glorify the Third Reich.
All those fascist movements in Europe and the anti-modernist tendencies in the US of the 1950s as well, all that is a reaction to the radical change in modern times. People don’t like change. I frightens them, at least most of the time. It really needs to get desperate in order that someone who promotes change can win an election
Having said all that, I do sympathize with your notion and with Paul Butzi’s, that art can, may and should be about beauty and health as well. Nothing wrong with that, as long as other views are not suppressed.
Andreas. That was a most unexpected reply. Very thought provoking. There is no way that I could have made that association, not having had those particular experiences.
I think that art, in general, is about the artists vision. Probably, intellectually, Rockwell knew that everything wasn’t sweet smelling flowers, but there was that component of American life that was.
The way that I look at it is that we are bombarded each day with the bad aspects of our life. News is nothing but a horror show. It is nice to see someone brush some of that stuff away and focus on the good things that still do happen. People still have picnics, attend parades, etc. Also, some artists do focus on dilapidation, homelessness, cruelty, etc. Norman Rockwell was not one to do so. Neither am I.
Neither am I. Much of my work is concerned with beauty. It’s not always obvious beauty, but beauty nevertheless. Some of it is not, and I absolutely can appreciate subjects like dilapidation, homelessness, cruelty, etc.
I guess that it’s only the forces of the art market that make some artists exclusively do this and others do that. Privately they most likely enjoy both anyway