A reason to visit Barack Obama's Washington this fall is the Norman Rockwell exhibit at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. The show features works from two unlikely Rockwell collectors: Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. According to the Smithsonian publicity for the exhibit, the two moviemakers were attracted to Rockwell's "love of country, small town values, children growing up, unlikely heroes, acts of imagination and life's ironies."
While I view the publicity's assertion with skepticism, I think there's something to be said for two Hollywood power players purchasing an artist so delightfully non-Warhollian as Norman Rockwell. It's easy to diminish Rockwell's work, and prefer something flashy and "contemporary" in sense and sensibility. I think it takes a certain self-confidence to look at Rockwell's work for what it offers, rather than what it lacks.
After I graduated from college, I returned to New York and began to know working artists. I was talking with one over a beer, and we happened to see a Rockwell
illustration from The Saturday Evening Post in a book. I said something snide about the work and about Rockwell in general. The artist very quickly objected, and pointed out to me that Rockwell was a fine draftsman. I understood the artist's point, and began to view Rockwell's work with a more thoughtful eye.
The episode taught me to become a much more independent thinker, and try to view art works, ideas, and ventures with a truly open mind, rather than cultivate viewpoints that just try to sound smart without really being so.
While I don't have an opinion about the Smithsonian's Rockwell exhibit yet, I do look forward to seeing it and understanding what makes his work worthy of an afternoon's visit.
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