Wednesday, April 1, 2015

Almost Wordless Wednesday: A Little More Rockwell

Many of Rockwell's images have become iconic.
Uneasy Christmas in the Birthplace of Christ

One of the features of Norman Rockwell's paintings was how effectively they redeemed the ordinary, made memorable the commonplace people and events we have all experienced in the course of our lives. Young girls studying their faces in mirrors, boys skinny-dipping, people working, kids playing, men in a diner listening to the radio to hear news of the war, lover's spats -- all the common stuff of life.

There is a sense in which Rockwell is also a truth-teller. Whereas other magazines placed celebrities, stars and starlets on their covers to sell magazines, Rockwell elevated our common lives to celeb status, for all of our lives and their foibles are to some extent an entertainment. A few years back, Time magazine chose "You" as "TIME Person of the Year." Norman Rockwell had been doing that for decades.

The other day I posted images from the American Chronicles exhibition currently on display at the Tampa Museum of Art. Here are more pictures from that exhibit.

Daniel Boone, My great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather.
The war provided many stories to tell.
Slim Pickins, for the movie poster Stagecoach
Woo hoo! Yee ha! Yeah. Have fun today. 

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