Time and Grace

Saying Grace, 1951. Norman Rockwell.

I'm proud to describe myself as mostly self-taught.  My only formal art schooling was the unusual program founded by Norman Rockwell and his peers: the Famous Artists School for Talented Young People.  It was a matchbook correspondence course, but I noticed, to my lifelong delight, that the courses placed a high premium on the finer qualities of art, both contemporaneous and historical.  I recall that the first leafed picture in my big binder was a landscape by Vincent van Gogh.  

Norman Rockwell has enjoyed the popular confidence of the American public, but his narrative style has also been roughly handled by gatekeepers of the fine arts.  Turns out Rockwell is more eclectic than they.  Here is a quote describing his take on larger place in art:

I don’t see things the way modernists do, even though I enjoy studying their work.

He studied their work?  Go on!  I can tell, because he organized his paintings with incredible intelligence and an eye for the formal elements of art.

Norman Rockwell's painting, Saving Grace, 1951, achieved the mammoth auction price of forty-six million dollars at Sotheby’s on Wednesday, December 4th.

Rockwell agonized over his painting; he probably lost money on it, but he was the only one who did.  - David Apatoff.

Can illustrative art rise to the heights of the numinous descriptor "fine art?"  What about representational work, which has also been denigrated as too pedestrian for upper-strata tastes? The best commentary I've read is by blogger David Apatoff.  You will find some depth to this story at Apartoff's blog; do have a look. This sale is indeed a newsworthy event, and it is a thumb in the eye of Rockwell's host of detractors over the years.  

When will we ever learn?  The subjective parts of painting are important, but should they consume our every critical thought about a painting?  Even a formalist can appreciate, and indeed love, the form of Norman Rockwell's brilliant work.  His keenly observed art rises to the fine, and challenges the boilerplate of how art "must" be done. 

Norman Rockwell sells for $46 Million.

WARRING WITH TROLLS, part 5.

Illustration Art, by David Apatoff.

About the Famous Artists School Founders.

Norman Rockwell, Jackson Pollock and Ideas

Yellow Trees, Blue Forest
9" x 7"
Pastel
Casey Klahn

This post was originally published in 2008.


It was a great joy to receive the following question from a second grade teacher located in Mexico:

Hi. I would like to know what do you think about the idea of Rockwell of painting Pollock’s in his.


I am teaching 2nd graders about Pollock and I have found it more complex that just dripping!

My reply:

Thank you for the question.


Maybe you saw my post about an image named The Connoisseur that Norman Rockwell did of the well heeled museum patron in front of a Jackson Pollock painting. 

I have a special affinity for NR, as I studied art via the Norman Rockwell Famous Artist's Course for Talented Young People when I was not much older than your second graders. He deserves the renewed interest that the art public is giving him, in my opinion.


On your question. What artist doesn't want to be liked for their artwork? Certainly there was a great deal of "artistic courage" that both of these famous artists exhibited.


NR was big enough in his heart to portray the wholly different painting style of the emerging super artist Jackson Pollock, and at the same time doing this with irony and humor. That was his trademark.


I don't see him passing any negative judgment in his painting, and as far as the art side of it is concerned, the man stands in the middle bottom of the painting, almost like a tree trunk whose canopy is the abstract painting. A wonderful idea, and difficult to pull off. Not at all following strict compositional rules. His talent in composing a painting is on show, here. That's irony, too!


JP had obvious "artistic courage" by not using regular oil paint or regular brushes or even regular primed canvases. He didn't use the easel, either. He was changing everything about painting, or as many things as he could think of to do.


As a contemporary artist, I have been given permission by JP to do more kinds of things to express my art than before he "broke" all those art rules. I choose to repeat my compositions over and over again, to make the point that the colors are the "meaning", not the trees. I like to get rid of "depth", so hammered into my brain by the great Norman Rockwell school. That reminds me (and maybe you, the viewer) that after all, you are looking at a painting about: color.


Kindly,

Casey Klahn

Art Education

Yellow Trees, Blue Forest
9" x 7"
Pastel
Casey Klahn

It was a great joy to receive the following question from a second grade teacher located in Mexico:

Hi. I would like to know what do you think about the idea of Rockwell of painting Pollock’s in his.

I am teaching 2nd graders about Pollock and I have found it more complex that just dripping!

My reply:

Thank you for the question.

Maybe you saw my post about an image named The Connoisseur that Norman Rockwell did of the well heeled museum patron in front of a Jackson Pollock painting.

I have a special affinity for NR, as I studied art via the Norman Rockwell Famous Artist's Course for Talented Young People when I was not much older than your second graders. He deserves the renewed interest that the art public is giving him, in my opinion.

On your question. What artist doesn't want to be liked for their artwork? Certainly there was a great deal of "artistic courage" that both of these famous artists exhibited.

NR was big enough in his heart to portray the wholly different painting style of the emerging super artist Jackson Pollock, and at the same time doing this with irony and humor. That was his trademark.

I don't see him passing any negative judgment in his painting, and as far as the art side of it is concerned, the man stands in the middle bottom of the painting, almost like a tree trunk whose canopy is the abstract painting. A wonderful idea, and difficult to pull off. Not at all following strict compositional rules. His talent in composing a painting is on show, here. That's irony, too!

JP had obvious "artistic courage" by not using regular oil paint or regular brushes or even regular primed canvases. He didn't use the easel, either. He was changing everything about painting, or as many things as he could think of to do.

As a contemporary artist, I have been given permission by JP to do more kinds of things to express my art than before he "broke" all those art rules. I choose to repeat my compositions over and over again, to make the point that the colors are the "meaning", not the trees. I like to get rid of "depth", so hammered into my brain by the great Norman Rockwell school. That reminds me (and maybe you, the viewer) that after all, you are looking at a painting about: color.

Kindly,

Casey Klahn

And Now, for the Critics of Pollock...

The Connoisseur Norman Rockwell
1962

Do you think Rockwell had a bad opinion of Pollock, or just a humorous side to him?

One thing I noticed is that it's a pretty good abstract, and in good illustrator's format, the main lines lead towards the figure.