The Way We Were

He painted the way we were. His warm humor, images of daily events made poignant, the ability to reflect the heart and soul of 20^th century America made us pause and ponder: A boy with pants pulled halfway down studying a framed medical degree hung on the wall while the doctor prepares to give him an injection; a little girl beating disgruntled boys in marbles; a young man anticipating the excitement of new discoveries, his father pondering the past. These illustrations stimulate enduring feelings that represent the heart of us all. 

Most Millennials and those younger are unfamiliar with Norman Rockwell (1894-1978) while older generations rank him with baseball, apple pie and Chevrolet. He painted nearly 4000 images, including 800 magazine covers—322 for the Saturday Evening Post—and ad campaigns for more than 150 companies.

He painted common places, common values, common feelings that moved beyond the trite and banal encouraging us, bringing us hope for the common man, inspiring us toward a better life. He moved beyond kitsch, beyond the old-fashioned to seal the American way that senoirs find a pleasure to recall. 

Troubled that he was an anomaly among leading artists of his day—Paul Cezanne, Edgar Degas, Matisse, Pablo Picasso he briefly studied cubism, surrealism, fauvism in Paris. He returned to New England convinced that painting from the heart was better than painting for art critics.

Blessed with keen observation, enamored by personal interaction, Rockwell summed up a story in a single frame inspiring filmmakers of our day. In the film Empire of the Sun a young boy is put to bed by loving parents inspired by Rockwell’s Freedom from Fear painting. American Graffiti is a montage of Rockwell paintings enlivened on film. Forest Gump has a scene that re-creates Rockwell’s Girl with a Black Eye with young Forrest in place of the girl. 

Rockwell’s  keen sense of how people interact enabled him to  incorporate the larger narrative of world events into a narrowly focused microcosm of community, family and nation, an idealized American that has become a faded canvas in the 21^st century.