Norman Rockwell: Beloved American Painter

One thing that surprises me about Norman Rockwell is how little is known about him in Latin America or at least in Ecuador. We know Botero, Guayasamín, Rivera and others, but not much about U.S. painters or, in this case, Norman Rockwell who has been called "America's most beloved painter" 

Could it be that his art did not offer that subjectivity other artists were offering at the time and that has led to that movement that produces all those "pieces of art" no one understands? Really, if you see Rockwell`s art the first thing one experiences is this sense of awe he could transmit by paying attention to every detail to the point his pictures look like real photos (such as the one above). His "simple and clean" style is actually an overwhelming display of skill that confers new dimensions to the everyday things he loved to portray. The American culture owes a lot to this man born in New York in 1894 (he died in 1978) because the scenes he painted marked entire generations and influenced other artists that have followed his steps (one of them is the famous comic artist Alex Ross).

His most important work is perhaps the Four Freedoms series, all of them painted in 1943 and inspired in a speech by Franklin D. Roosevelt (in 1941) when he referred to the Freedom of Worship, the Freedom of Speech, the Freedom from Fear and the Freedom from Want, freedoms that according to Roosevelt everyone in the world should have.

I did not know much about Rockwell until his work was introduced to me by +Peter Hales, a professor I met at UIC (University of Illinois in Chicago) when I went there as part of a special program called SUSI (Study of the United States Institute) and of course he knows more about Rockwell than I will ever do.

My favorite Rockwell's piece is none of the Four Freedoms but one that is called The Right to Know.

There is something about this picture that is truly compelling and perhaps it is the faces of all those people. Who are they looking at? You? Us? BTW, you can see Rockwell to your right smoking a pipe (he had the habit of including himself in his pics). Also if you want to see a bit of the influence Rockwell has had in other artists, in particular comic artists, visit http://hombredetrapo79.blogspot.com/2012/10/homenaje-norman-rockwell.html, where you will find an entire post detailing precisely some major examples of that influence.