July 28, 2010

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As a child, one of my "heroes of art" was Norman Rockwell. I always remember being mesmerized by Rockwell's ability to capture the human form, seemingly like a photograph. I heeded him as a great talent as a conveyer of emotion in his illustrations and paintings. As a teenager, I collected books of his art and  studied them. By the time I went to art school I started to realize that this type of art was not appreciated much in art circles, but I continued to love his work, despite the resistance!  Loved by the masses but not excepted by the critics. 
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Over the years, I would buy the occasional Norman Rockwell calendar or card deck, still intrigued by his sensibility.
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I hadn't thought much about Norman for years, though the books still sit on my bookshelf. That changed the other day when my brother handed me a New York Times article on Rockwell.
Norman Rockwell's contribution to the art world is being celebrated again. George Lucas and Steven Speilberg are huge fans and collectors, finding the way Rockwell approached his work similar to their craft. I was fascinated to find out that after Rockwell had composed the story behind a picture, he approached his painting in a manner not unlike a director would for a movie. Rockwell would assemble props and stage scenes in his studio. One time he went as far as to borrow seats from actual trains and promptly send them back in the mail when he was done. He wouldn't even draw a wool sock from his imagination, opting for the real thing in front of him.
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It somehow thrills me to hear these details about Rockwell's creative process. Every artist approaches his art in a different way. Some draw from real life, others work with pictures, and some work only from their imagination.  Every artist has subjects that they love and ways they feel they want to represent those subjects. Other artists will only delve into conceptual art, trying to convey a  particular idea in a very different way. No way is wrong; each artist is simply trying to express their thoughts and use their talents.
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Check out the link to the current exhibition at the Smithsonian Institute featuring his work. Have a great day! 
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Karen :)

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Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures.     -Henry Ward Beecher