Comments on: Norman Rockwell and American Idealist Art

By: Ima Ryma

Ima Ryma — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 09:11:22 +0000

Norman Rockwell could see within
All the human complexity,
Then show to us over again
Simplies of life for us to see.
A moment with someone we know,
To share but not intrude upon,
To feel a sense that somehow so
All lives do touch and then move on.
Thank goodness, Mr. Rockwell chose
Not to follow the artsy crowd.
He kept with common folk. It shows
In all his painting us all proud.

Norman Rockwell does illustrate
That simply life does captivate.

By: Frank James Davis

Frank James Davis — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 22:32:27 +0000

Correction to previous post: “…who also believe in Rockwell’s work.”

By: Frank James Davis

Frank James Davis — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 22:27:59 +0000

Perhaps the best of Jeff Nillson’s Post articles.
Like the artist, himself, there are many of us out here who also believe Rockwell’s work.

By: Dick Burkholder, PA

Dick Burkholder, PA — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 22:21:16 +0000

Rockwell’s “modern artist” didn’t understand him at all. Rockwell surely painted with “feeling”, and compositionally, his paintings stand up with the best works of any era. The moderns didn’t identify with Rockwell’s consistently sunny disposition, the sympathy and humor he brought to ALL situations, whether people were suffering in them or not. He wasn’t suggesting that we should ignore suffering–that Willie Gillis, for example, his prototypical WWII GI, forget about the buddies he lost overseas; rather, he reminds us that suffering along with the sufferers isn’t the most effective way of dealing with suffering. One should bring knowledge, energy, and love to the relief of suffering, and Rockwell, consistently and for sixty years, relieved suffering by recalling those aspects of life from which Americans dependably drew emotional sustenance, week after week and no matter what history was throwing at them, such as the freedom of throwing one’s feet back every Saturday and reading “The Saturday Evening Post”.