Norman Rockwell - artist or hack?

[Interrobang]

A hack is someone paid to produce artwork on demand. In that sense, Rockwell was definitely a hack, because, well, that’s what he did for a living: drew what the SEP wanted. “Hack” and “great artist” aren’t mutually exclusive, although they often be so.

But I think he qualifies as talented illustrater/mediocre artist because, to my mind, great art includes ambiguities. Rockwell’s work (for the most part) is decidedly unambiguous – it’s realistic in presentation, and you know what you’re supposed to think or how you’re supposed to feel about any given piece.

That’s not a bad thing. He was a very successful illustrator, and a decent artist, and I can see why lots of people like his work and want to look at it over and over again.

Critics, who are ultimately (when they’re good) people who see a lot of whatever art form they’re criticizing, think about it in depth, and like the art form itself, will inevitably often have different opinions from the general public. Work that doesn’t challenge them, that doesn’t ask questions, that doesn’t give their interest something to coalesce around, won’t win flattering words.

Of course, sometimes critics miss stuff. Art is being reevaluated all the time, with stuff considered good losing luster and stuff considered bad gaining luster. Will Rockwell be reevaluated? I think he’s in the process, to some degree; I know there have been critical defenses of his work.

And it’s not like there’s a final answer. Time passes, tastes change, work gets re-re-reevaluated, and things fall in and out of favor. If there are Rockwell paintings around in 5000 years, people who see them then will have opinions about them that we can’t even guess. All any critic – or any viewer – can do is give his or her honest opinion.

My honest opinion: I like his work fine, but it doesn’t move me or prod me to think or give me questions to ponder. It doesn’t strike me as special. His vein of nostalgia will probably become less and less effective as time goes by, which means he’ll probably be mostly appreciated by people who like realistic illustration and those with a cultural anthropological bent.

Glad you like him, though.

[yosemite]

@Liberal

Here’s the part I don’t get so far. The artsy-fartsies (Fine Art critics) criticize art that is well drawn and therefore criticize Rockwell, and yet his art is really not well drawn (not terribly technically accomplished) and so it qualifies as fine art? Is he, as an artist, damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t?

I think he was technically accomplished. I’ve seen many reproductions of his work (my dad was a HUGE fan and bought many Rockwell books) and I’ve always admired his techinical prowess. Also, the several original works I saw all had beautiful rendering. (I’m a rendering and drawing kind of gal, so that sort of thing captures my attention.)

I studied a lot of anatomy and figure drawing, and one of my teachers (Burne Hogarth) had a teacher (George Bridgman) who was also the teacher of Norman Rockwell. (Six degrees of separation. Oh wait! That’s 3—or is it 4?—degrees!) Because of my own zealous focus on anatomy and drawing during my education, I can be a rather harsh critic about others’ drawing skill. And I always thought Rockwell drew exceptionally well. It’s something you can see in some of his rough sketches and so forth. I think rough sketches really reveal how much skill an artist has, and he showed plenty. His earliest work was less impressive, but his later work was, in my opinion, quite wonderful, at least technically.

[Charlie_Tan]

I think Rockwell answered this debate himself, with this painting, aptly called The Connoisseur - essentially ‘Up yours, critics!’

[pulykamell]

@Liberal

Here’s the part I don’t get so far. The artsy-fartsies (Fine Art critics) criticize art that is well drawn and therefore criticize Rockwell, and yet his art is really not well drawn (not terribly technically accomplished) and so it qualifies as fine art? Is he, as an artist, damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t?

This is perhaps the silliest statement I’ve read so far. Almost all great art is a combination of excellent technique and excellent ideas. A good art critic does not criticize a work because it’s too technically proficient…are you kidding me? There’s this idea people have that just because it’s not photorealistic, or rather, abstract, that there’s somehow less technique or no technique involved. Pshaw.
I’ve said this before on the boards, but pretty much every canonical modern artist was also a competent, if not extraordinary, draftsman as well. They just chose to challenge themselves and the audience in the pursuit of breaking ground in the visual arts.

[bonzer]

@Krokodil

Wonder how he’s percieved in Eurpoe?

He’s known of, but pretty much just as a shorthand for shallow Americana. I doubt, for instance, whether there’s ever been a retrospective devoted to him mounted in London. By contrast, Tate Modern is about to open their big Hopper exhibition.

[Slithy_Tove]

I think Normand Rockwell deserved everything he received, and not one bit more. Go check out Rembrandt for the real thing: not just “looks like a photo” draftsmaship, but capturing gestures in mid-movement so that the subjects don’t look stiff and flat. Compostiton that balances the picture without making it static. And the light in Rembrandt! Amazing!

[rjung]

I love Norman Rockwell’s stuff.

It might not be high art, it might not be artistically deep, but it’s pleasing to the eye and makes its points well. The critics can go cross-eyed looking at their cubist faves, but I’ll take Norm any day of the week.

[Eonwe]

So, I’m not really clear. A lot of folks seem to be saying illustrators aren’t artists. Anyone who produces art on comission isn’t an artist? I’m not really getting that.

Many a classical composer wrote excessively for patrons who comissioned works. Does this make them hacks and not true ‘artists’?

[Eve]

@rjung

It might not be high art, it might not be artistically deep, but it’s pleasing to the eye and makes its points well. The critics can go cross-eyed looking at their cubist faves, but I’ll take Norm any day of the week.

Well, I hate those cubist fauves, too, and I love illustration, and I still don’t think Norman Rockwell was half the artist (or “illustrator,” or “hack”) that Neysa McMein or J.C. Leyendecker or Charles Dana Gibson or Richard Amsel were.

Not because of his subject matter–I love corn as much as the next gal!–but because I don’t think Rockwell was ever anything more than a technically proficient “painting machine.”

[AHunter3]

I think some of it is social politics. While I’m sure he had disapproving critics back in his early days, I think lots of the vitriol comes from the 60s & onward, when he was associated with “old traditional Ozzie & Harriet and Andy Griffith America”.

I don’t even think it’s his pictures themselves so much as the social-reactionary subculture that embraced him in a nostalic sentimentality binge that glorified the supposedly “innocent” 50s when America was wholesome and freckley-faced and didn’t have complicated questions to contemplate.

[pulykamell]

@Eonwe

So, I’m not really clear. A lot of folks seem to be saying illustrators aren’t artists. Anyone who produces art on comission isn’t an artist? I’m not really getting that.

Many a classical composer wrote excessively for patrons who comissioned works. Does this make them hacks and not true ‘artists’?

No, I don’t think anybody is saying that.

[Miller]

@Liberal

Here’s the part I don’t get so far. The artsy-fartsies (Fine Art critics) criticize art that is well drawn and therefore criticize Rockwell, and yet his art is really not well drawn (not terribly technically accomplished) and so it qualifies as fine art? Is he, as an artist, damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t?

That’s only a contradiction if it’s being said by the same person. It’s possible for one critic to dislike Rockwell for not being a good enough realist painter, and another critic to dislike him for being too good a realist painter, and yet both of them can be giving completely honest reactions to the work. Art being entirely subjective, it’s entirely a matter of what that particular critic likes or dislikes. As a result, I doubt there’s an artist in all of history who didn’t get this sort of contradictory criticism.

[CalMeacham]

I studied a lot of anatomy and figure drawing, and one of my teachers (Burne Hogarth) had a teacher (George Bridgman) who was also the teacher of Norman Rockwell.

You studied under Burne Hogarth?

I’m impressed!

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

He was an artist. Of course he was an artist. I don’t really get the supercillious art snob dismissals of his work either. Very few, if any, American artist ha sever been able to communicate to people and entertain as well as Rockwell did. His illustrations tell stories and I’m fascinated by the amount of detail he works into every painting.

It seems like being popular is some sort of stigma in the arts. We’re not supposed to like heart and sentiment and accessibility. If we really knew anything we’d be staring at pictures of triangles or piles of garbage while drinking tea in some gallery. Stuff that communicates nothing and entertains nobody gets praised while anything that people actually like gets sniffed at.

Rockwell is instantly recognizable, always entertaining and accessible, highly skilled and eminently likeable. He’s one of a very short list of painters that the average American has not only heard of but can identify his work on sight. That makes him pretty successful as an artist in my book.

[Horatio_Hellpop]

@Eonwe

So, I’m not really clear. A lot of folks seem to be saying illustrators aren’t artists. Anyone who produces art on comission isn’t an artist? I’m not really getting that.

Many a classical composer wrote excessively for patrons who comissioned works. Does this make them hacks and not true ‘artists’?

An illustrator is a draughtsman, helping to sell an idea. An artist may or may not be a gifted draughtsman (Rembrandt and Miro are at opposite ends of the “draws pretty” spectrum, but both are unquestionably great artists), but has a higher calling to present the “truth.”

One can be a technical marvel and be a terrible artist (The name Thomas Kincade has been mentioned here several times). Some illustrators have a vision of the soul, others just want to make their hourly rate for painting a coke bottle. Illustration and high art have a fair amount of overlap, but they’re not exactly the same thing. One needn’t exclude the other, but they are still separate considerations.

[yosemite]

@CalMeacham

You studied under Burne Hogarth?

I’m impressed!

Thanks!

I took two semesters under him back in the '80s when he was a pretty old guy (but still very sharp). He taught at Otis in Los Angeles, and then moved to Art Center in Pasadena. Or vice versa. He was an absolutely great teacher and really helped me with my drawing. He did these demos where he’d sketch out some part of the body while lecturing and it was just a marvel to watch him draw. It was a really great experience. And the fellow students were sometimes a trip too. Some rather accomplished and semi-famous (at least in artsy circles) artists came out of the woodwork to take his class. It was pretty cool.

The thing I remember him saying about George Bridgman (who was also Norman Rockwell’s teacher back for the Art Student’s League) was that he was a great technician and craftsman, but he didn’t do any original, finished artworks. Just great anatomy sketches. I always recall that when I look at Bridgman’s books.

[pulykamell]

@Krokodil

An illustrator is a draughtsman, helping to sell an idea. An artist may or may not be a gifted draughtsman (Rembrandt and Miro are at opposite ends of the “draws pretty” spectrum, but both are unquestionably great artists)

Except that Miro was a decent enough draftsman, something you can see in his much earlier, cubist-inspired work and earlier. (It wasn’t always all squiggles and primary colors with him.) And so were Pollack, Kandinsky, Picasso…pretty much any canonical abstract artist you can think of. Heck, Kandinsky started off his career as a commercial artist, illustrating Russian children’s books. Jackson Pollock’s sketchbooks should put to rest any notion that he was just some guy who splashed paint on a canvas. We’re just not exposed to this work because, frankly, it’s uninteresting compared with the work these artists matured into.

Frankly, I don’t understand the appeal of realism. If I want realism, I’ll look at a photo. I want to see something I’ve never seen before. Give me Penck, DeKooning, Rothko, or Richter anyday.

[DMark]

@AHunter3

I think some of it is social politics. While I’m sure he had disapproving critics back in his early days, I think lots of the vitriol comes from the 60s & onward, when he was associated with “old traditional Ozzie & Harriet and Andy Griffith America”.

I don’t even think it’s his pictures themselves so much as the social-reactionary subculture that embraced him in a nostalic sentimentality binge that glorified the supposedly “innocent” 50s when America was wholesome and freckley-faced and didn’t have complicated questions to contemplate.

I agree. I think part of his popularity was that he captured an idealized vision of America - and it was an ideal vision even then. It was what the America people wanted to believe in, and he was able to capture the memory of the “good old days” even as people were still living in the good old days. Seriously, does anybody even remember reading The Saturday Evening Post? I think it was mandatory to wear a cardigan sweater and smoke a pipe in order to buy a copy.
(Women who wore pearl necklaces and high heels when vacuuming were allowed to read their husband’s copy.)

[Gamaliel]

@The Gaspode

I think Rockwell answered this debate himself, with this painting, aptly called The Connoisseur - essentially ‘Up yours, critics!’

To me, it doesn’t say anything like that at all. It seems like he’s depiciting a man trying to honestly come to grips with this new form of expression, without the clowing and broad expressions that make so much of his other work so obvious and dull. It has that essentially quality of ambiguity which makes it more interesting to me than the 7 quintillion pictures of boy scouts doing scout things I was exposed to growing up.

Of course, having no idea what Rockwell’s intent here was (do you?) I could be completely wrong in my interpretation.

What I find really interesting about this whole discussion is this bizarre fixation on these all-powerful critics who have conspired to keep anything popular down. I couldn’t care less how popular he was or wasn’t. He’s interesting to me when he’s interesting, he’s boring to me when he’s boring. Guess I’m a poor critic for not hating everything popular. Even if this strawman were true, I don’t see how that’s any worse than people who hate all abstract art, or anything that critics like, etc. Regardless, it’s entirely irrelevant to Rockwell’s worth as an artist; it’s like saying “Critics hate him so he must be good!” :rolleyes:

[Eve]

@Diogenes the Cynic

Rockwell is instantly recognizable, always entertaining and accessible, highly skilled and eminently likeable.

See, I think it’s just the “highly skilled” some of us are taking issue with. I think he was so prolific that a lot of more talented illustrators are overlooked in his favor.