A peep at ourselves – that’s the way I’d describe the exhibition of Norman Rockwell’s work at the Dulwich Picture Gallery, which you’ve just got time to see before it closes on 27th March. I do recommend it.
Rockwell has been a guilty pleasure for some of us. He’s been labelled sentimental, folksy, unrealistic, middle class. The pendulum is swinging, though, and his body of work is now acknowledged as an archive of American experience or, as Richard Dorment in his critique of the exhibition put it, “a monumental installation about America’s changing view of itself over the course of the twentieth century.”
You’ll be familiar with quite a few of his Saturday Evening Post covers, I’m sure, and there’s a complete list at Best Norman Rockwell Art. Unfortunately, the one that justifies a mention of him in a gardening blog isn’t illustrated, although it is on the wall at Dulwich among all 323 covers that he created for the Post between 1916 and 1963.
The First Sign of Spring, a cover for March 22nd 1947, is not particularly well known (unlike many of the wartime ones – see Homecoming GI, analysed by Richard Dorment, and my personal favourite, Thanksgiving 1945. (The print version of the latter possesses something that has been lost in the on-screen reproduction shown here – the intense gaze and stillness of the mother as she looks at her son, chatting away, peeling potatoes, home, and safe.) The First Sign of Spring does, however, encapsulate why Rockwell’s approach was so popular, I think.
A tubby, slightly comical chap is bending down, pointing at three little shoots in the soil at his feet; he’s looking off page and is obviously shouting, “Look!”, excitement all over his face. By him is an equally tubby watering-can and he’s holding a hoe. It’s not a sophisticated emotion or position for an adult.
If you think about it, the more obvious treatment of the subject would have been to feature a young child, amazed by nature. But that’s Rockwell’s genius. He was brilliant, not only at telling a story (as someone comments on the DT article, “I have never viewed one of his works without understanding what happened before, what is happening now, and what might happen next.") but at picking small moments that we immediately recognise but don't, in the daily run of things, remark upon.
OK, children are amazed at seeds emerging. But, let’s be honest, who among us hardened adults doesn’t feel that leap of joy and excitement when we spot our first daffodil or bumblebee of the year?
Rockwell expresses our common humanity, and allows us to appreciate it too.
To listen to a feature on the Rockwell exhibition from BBC World Service visit Dulwich Gallery's website.
...Landscape Juice Network
Very nice. I wanted to get to the Norman Rockwell exhibition but had too much on and the Dulwich gallery is not easy by tube so i couldn't pack in a flying visit on the one day in March I was in the capital.
I read a really condescending review of it by Brian Sewell in the Evening Standard, I usually like Sewell but thought he's being snobbish, 'anything as nice as this can't be proper art'. I like Rockwell's vision of America as it should be even if its not as true to life as it might be. There is gritty reality and other ugly genres for those who must have them. You gotta have a dream......
Posted by: Stephen Hayes | Wednesday, 30 March 2011 at 05:05 PM
Couldn't agree more, Stephen. Besides the bad things in life are not the only reality. Opinion seems to be that if you emphasise the kindnesses of life, you're giving an unbalanced view. But if you depict the unpleasant things, you're painting a true picture. They both exist. Thank you for posting.
By the way, in case you want to visit in the future, Dulwich gallery is only ten mins walk from the overland train station, which is only about ten mins from Victoria.
Posted by: Helen Gazeley | Thursday, 12 May 2011 at 10:31 AM