NORMAN ROCKWELL

Norman Rockwell, 1894-1978, is most famous for the cover illustrations of everyday life he created for The Saturday Evening Post magazine for nearly fifty years.  Rockwell's style of painting is called photorealism, because his paintings involved photographs that he took himself to make the paintings.  He traced the pictures onto the canvas before painting them.

The works that made Rockwell famous depicted ordinary Americans going about their lives.  He showed them experiencing daily activities and simple pleasures.  His paintings were charming, humorous and human.  He made a conscious decision early on to depict people and situations that Americans could relate and respond to.  His characters were expressive, emotional, inquisitive and apt to make mistakes.  This made his works relatable, and Americans fell in love with them. 

Norman Rockwell

My spotlight is on his winter scenes.  We might take note of the "happy" in them.  Winter is the season of easily relatable fun...the kind that can be had only in winter.  We can't ice skate until there's ice, and there's ice only in winter.  Same with sledding.  That's why something tells me that winter is fun when we're children, but we learn to dislike winter because we have to deal with the barriers and challenges that come with snow and ice.  But, beyond that, there's the beauty of winter...the winter white, the silent snowfalls where flakes fall down gently or heavily in blizzard winds.  Where and when else can we see such a natural phenomenon?  We rave about the Northern Lights and complain about the magnificent wonder of snow.  The snowflake is the perfect metaphor for a human.  "Snow is what it does.  It falls and it stays and it goes." Each one of us is different, we're fragile, and we eventually simply melt away.  Snowflakes are exquisite in their shape and glittery complexity.  They represent divine beauty and grace.  

We baby boomers exist in a world unlike the one we lived in our entire lives.  Do you know what the snowflake ❄️ represents on TikTok?  It is used in a demeaning way to call someone overly emotional or describe someone who is unable to deal with opposing opinions. In our lifetimes, the snowflake symbolized a frozen blanket of peace. 

 

Grandpa and Me:  Ice Skating

Good for Young and Old

Tree in Town Square

Four Boys on a Sled

This last painting is packed with fun things.....a little boy stops Santa by standing on a ladder in front of the old pickup truck.  The reindeer are standing beside the pickup that's packed with brightly wrapped presents.  Every window in the brick house is lit up, and we're left to imagine what all is going on inside.  And be sure to see Santa's license plate on the front bumper, and dig those whitewalls.  

We may be the next generation in line to be removed, but this girl thanks heaven every day for being gifted with a life starting in 1946.  We lived to see the absence of material possessions, and we lived to see a crippling excess of material possessions.  We also see how the psychological concepts have changed in that short period of time.  Maybe that's what makes it easier for us to let go and leave when it's our time.  I don't know, I'm simply thinking with my fingers on a keyboard.  I share my inner self, hoping that there's someone else out there who feels as I do.  If not, that's okay.  After all, I could probably fit both generational definitions of a snowflake.  Hmmmm.

This is the magic of art.  One picture hanging on our wall has the power to play with our child-like self.  I refuse to sink in the cold and uncaring climate of 2024.  If there's a way to find a positive path, I will find it, and take it and all the amazing things to find along the way. 

"Nature is full of genius, full of the divinity; so that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand."