Norman Rockwell

Before I knew who Norman Rockwell is, I encountered his works three times. In Japanese, perhaps I can say that this is 縁があります. We have a special tie. First time was in K's lecture, where he showed one of Rockwell's paintings.

The girl in front of the mirror has two images: one is her reflection in the mirror, and the other is the actress on the magazine. The painting struck me because I feel it portrays something universal. All of us have these two images: who we are and who we strive to be.

Early this year, when I was at AAS, a professor showed me and a new friend we met a mural preserved in a Song tomb. The mural is about the daily life of a family, which apparently manufactured medicine for living. "This is like Rockwell's paintings on American lives," they commented. I was at a loss. Who is Rockwell? They then explained to me by showing another painting of him. 

This is a rather amusing image of a boy, before receiving the penicillin injection, examines the certificate of the doctor. I encountered this image again in JG's lecture on American history of medicine, from which I learned more about the social context of the image. Despite Rockwell's playful depiction, doctors' authority was rarely challenged in the mid-20th century America, when this painting was produced.   

So who is Norman Rockwell? He is one of the most eminent illustrators/artists in the 20th century America. What made him famous is the over-300 cover illustrations that he produced  for the Saturday Evening Post magazine from 1910s to 1960s. The popularity of the magazine made millions of Americans familiar with his works. In a sense, Rockwell's works are quintessential American, because they captured the spirit of everyday American lives in the 20th century. 

Rockwell spent the last 25 years of his life in Stockbridge, a small town in the western Massachusetts. Hence a museum was built there after he died in the 70s. Out of curiosity, I went there last weekend. Unlike most of the museums I visited before, this one is located in a rural area. On my way there, I was driving through dense forests in a mountainous region. And almost all of a sudden, the museum dashed into my eyes, sitting on a big grassland with mountains in the back. It was beautiful. 

The museum is not very big. On one level, it hangs up all reprints of the 323 paintings that Rockwell made for the Post. Going through them is like a quick survey of American history in the 20th century. Many people may not say Rockwell is a true artist, and Rockwell himself admitted this. Most of his works are for commercial use; he worked for deadlines and had to follow the guidelines of those magazines he worked for. For example, his illustrations for the Past are generally uplifting and bright, even during the dark period of the Great Depression. This is because the Post, a conservative magazine, set the style. Similarly, Rockwell's portrayal of American lives after the WWII is positive, with soldiers coming back home and establishing happy families. The reality may not be that simple. The malfunction of the American middle class in the 50s is widespread, though only gradually recognized later. If you want to get a real sense of what this is about, go to see the movies such as "The Hours" and "Revolutionary Road."          

But I don't intend to devalue Rockwell's works. If he is not a great artist, he is a great story-teller. The commercial concern made him efficiently produce paintings that can tell stories in a few seconds in order to catch the eyes of his audience. And he did it quite successfully without sacrificing the meticulous details of his artwork. In fact, traditional training made him pay great attention to details. As a result, his works are both arresting and accurate. No small an achievement. Just look back to the painting "Girl at the mirror." Isn't there something beautiful in this painting, something sadly beautiful?  

  

A new time

When I checked the date of my last post, it is Sept. 5, 2011. In French, I would say "j'ai la honte," that is, I am pathetic! Nine months have passed. Lots of things took place during the time: I submitted my prospectus; my prospectus got passed; I taught two courses; I went to visit my brother in SF; I received a fellowship for my research abroad. And many more. On the other hand, nothing seemed to happen at all. Right now, I am sitting on the window seat in my living room, looking over the quiet street outside and musing upon whatever in my head, or nothing. That was exactly the situation one year ago, when I started this blog. I love summer time in Cambridge.    

Time is an interesting thing. Everyone agrees that it is irreversible. It flows in one direction, like a river. But time is never an abstract concept. It associates with things in this world and our experiences. Hence, the contour of its flow becomes more complicated. Sometimes, it repeats itself, either through a natural pattern (seasonality, for example) or by personal experiences. We can also think about memory, which makes our past part of our present. Surely we can contemplate a historical time, that is, a time flowing from the past to the present. Many historians contemplate this issue. One of my former advisors even claimed that the conception of time is the key factor to distinguish a modernist from a post-modernist perspective.

What does this mean? Let's put these technical jargons aside, and just think about a popular narrative of time - a progressive time. This makes sense at the first glimpse: with the development of science and technology, we are living in a better world than those who live in the Middle Ages. Barely can we find a person who prefers to live in the past, no matter how nostalgia he/she is, where epidemics abounded and the living condition was miserable. This progressive narrative, though, is not without problems. These days it has become a tacit knowledge among historians that a progressive time does not do justice to history, because it usually engages the use of applying modern standards to the evaluation of the past. This inevitably ends up with a glorious celebration of the present at the expense of dismissing the past as backward, unsophisticated or even alien. The end result: a complete disconnect between the past and the present. Historians wouldn't be very happy about that.

Let's listen to what Walter Benjamin, the eminent social critique in the early 20th century, comments on the topic. Here are his words on a painting by Paul Klee :

"A Klee painting named 'Angelus Novus' shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to say, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer them. This storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress." 

What historians try to do is to remove the violence of progress in order to "awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed." 

Why do I say so much gibberish about time and history? I don't know. I would like to say more things about Benjamin's fascinating writings. But at the moment, it might serve to alleviate my guilt of not writing for my blog for such a long time. Time is not a linear, seamless thing. Neither is my blog writing. Enough about excuse. Now I want to initiate a new time for my blog, to keep writing in the following year, when I will travel extensively. Let's see where my angle flies.