It documents a country which was lost long ago.
My personal favorite Rockwell painting was his foray into the political ideological realm with “Russian Schoolroom”.
That one painting speaks volumes.
Art critics are the snobbiest of snobs.
I always thought that he was wonderful.
My brother has a Rockwell. A hand drawn Rockwell. By Rockwell.
I saw the Rockwell Exhibition last year at WALMART’S Crystal Bridges museum. Well worth the trip!
Rosie the Riveter is on permanent display there.
I remember back in 1971, there was South African artist who did pretty calender art pictures. The critics hated his work and he said it hurt his feelings so bad he “cried every time he went to the bank”.
Years ago, there were thousands of paintings done for pulp magazine covers back in the 1930s through 1970. No one wanted the paintings so they were burned in mass furnaces in the printing houses.
Today if you have an original painting from an old magazine cover it is worth not less than $40,000.
I guess I’m a great art critic. I thought Rockwell’s paintings were fine art ever since I first saw them on the covers of the Saturday Evening Post.
Regardless of this, I've always had an affinity for Rockwell's style and his amazing attention to detail in his works.
"Shuffleton's Barbershop" is a great example of this. If it had simply been a painting of the interior of the building it would have been a great illustration on its own. But the window frame and pane in the foreground -- complete with a crack in the lower right corner -- really bring it to life.
I never understood the fascination with Warhol and the pap he produced, I’ take Rockwell any day over the so called artists like Warhol.
Blake Gopnik joined a long line of prominent critics attacking Rockwell, the American artist and illustrator who depicted life in mid-20th-century America and died in 1978.
Major FAIL. Rockwell transmitted his perceptions to the canvas with a clarity that was almost unrivaled in Art.
Don’t bother looking at the amateur scrubbing of Daisy Rockwell, Norman’s Grand daughter is making a name for herself by painting terrorists. Daisy say’s she has a ‘sympathy’ for them. More style than substance with this one.
CBS News did a feature on Rockwell’s “The Rookie” last night http://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-norman-rockwell-drafted-his-rookie/
His resurgence may indicate that even in the art world, people are ready to reverse course.
Heck, it was the main reason my parents, (and grandparents for that matter) subscribed to The Saturday Evening Post for decades..
I liked it when I was a kid, I like it even more now.
Same with movies... It is incredibly rare when I like something the critics love.... Of course these days, it is rare that they make a movie that I like at all.
“Let’s say someone is holding a gun to your head and he tells you that you have to do an exact copy of one of these paintings in a week. And one of the paintings is a Norman Rockwell Saturday Evening Post cover and one of the paintings is a Picasso. It doesn’t matter which one, as long as the Picasso is one of the ones that is just a geometric patchwork of painted shapes. So, any Picasso from Cubism onward. The Rockwell can be any Saturday Evening Post cover. Now, with a gun at your head and your life on the line, which one are you going to copy? Exactly. Because pretty much anyone can do it. It takes no talent. It is the Emperor’s New Clothes.”
—Dave Sim
Freegards
This is one of the most fascinating Rockwell’s in my opinion.
http://www.art.com/products/p9388040780-sa-i5446833/norman-rockwell-road-block-july-9-1949.htm
Look at the girl with the blue bicycle. Sunglasses, short hair, a hat almost like a modern baseball cap, shorts, sneakers, and a backpack. When I first saw that, I was stunned as it looks like the girl is from the 1990s or later.
If it’s not a crucifix in urine, it’s not art.