In a message dated 10/7/10 8:25:04 PM, [email protected] writes:
> It won't do to simply discuss his complicated life or soulful
> struggles since there's no noticeable causal relationship between those
> facts
> (if they are facts) and the context he created for his work. The two
> realms of
> Rockwell, the man and his work, would need to have a truly integrated
> context
> to justify a reinterpretation or re-contextualization.
>
There is no causal relationship between Rockwell's personal life and his
work. I read a biography-there aren't many and this was the thickest-and
it was clear that Rockwell was not drawing upon his personal angst for his
pictures. The closest he got was in the patriotic ones.
If he pasted a cereal box cover on a painting it was to save time. I
went to the Rockwell museum this summer. The quality of the paint deteriorates
over his lifetime, the drawing is a little off-he was good at cut and paste
but not brilliant and some of his figures are occupying each other's
space. There are surprisingly no remarkable still lifes in the array of stuff
in
his paintings in the museum. I hope the good ones are somewhere else and
this was what remained to show in Stockbridge.
Conger said: It remains to be seen if Rockwell's depth as a
commentator on life can withstand the stew of sentimentality and banality
that
soaks his work.
He isn't a commentator on life, he is a remarkable depictor of banal
sentiment. Where it might seem that he reaches any depth, it is his subject
which overcomes his primary intent.
Kate Sullivan
