Norman Rockwell: The Man and His Art comes to us on the 20th anniversary of Rockwell’s death in 1978. It features nearly 500 of Norman Rockwell’s paintings, including the complete series of 324 Saturday Evening Post covers and covers from LOOK, McCall’s, and other leading publications. It also contains hundreds of photographs and illustrations, many with audio narrative. The product consists of five sections: gallery, studio, scrapbook, resources, and archive.
The Gallery features 20 of Rockwell’s most famous illustrations with an audio introduction and narrated descriptions. Each image contains three or four hot spots that enlarge and change shape as the cursor moves over it. Items in a circle provide an analysis of that portion of the painting, while items in a box give anecdotal information describing the inspiration behind the illustration and the artist’s techniques to produce the desired results.
The Gallery uses an artist’s easel as its metaphor. The selected painting displays on the easel accompanied by a brief audio description. A caption appears in the upper right corner of the screen, giving the painting’s title, the date it was painted, where it appeared, its dimensions, and the medium used. The easel tray serves as the toolbar. Here, one finds a button that identifies the image on display and toggles to an alphabetical list of all the paintings in the Gallery. Red and blue dabs of paint turn yellow as the cursor moves over them and go to the next or previous painting in the Gallery. A magnifying glass icon enlarges the image to view it in greater detail. Norman Rockwell’s characteristic pipe brings up a window with quotes offering his perspective on the painting; and a paintbrush icon brings up the main menu.
The Studio lets the visitor explore Rockwell’s studio in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. When one enters, one sees Norman’s easel surrounded by art work and props. Most of these items offer narrated slide descriptions of his painting techniques. Moving the cursor off the screen to the right or left will lead to the model stand (right) where one can learn about Rockwell’s approach to his models, or to his desk which provides information about his career.
One can also take three thematic “tours” of the studio. The themes cover stories from Rockwell’s studio, memories and mementos, and home and studio history. Each tour offers a video and a narrated slide show. The videos feature people who knew the artist, conversations with some of Rockwell’s models, and pioneer television journalist Edward R. Murrow’s television interview of Rockwell for Person to Person. One can also see an architect’s drawing of the studio.
The Scrapbook offers an insight into the life and times of Norman Rockwell and the history recorded in, and the role played by his illustrations. It contains four screens documenting events in significant phases of his life: Norman’s Early Years, The Boy Illustrator Comes of Age, New Beginnings, and Into the Golden Years. It uses a scrapbook metaphor with pictures linked to narrated slide shows. Each screen features representative paintings from the period, with links to the Gallery for a more detailed description.
The resources section lists books, films and videos, museums and Web sites dedicated to Rockwelliana. It aims to be comprehensive; but it overlooks at least one important museum, the Norman Rockwell Museum in Rutland, Vermont.
The archive section provides access to all 488 paintings, illustrations, and sketches on the disc, including the 324 Saturday Evening Post covers. This may seem like a comprehensive collection; but it does not include the covers Rockwell painted for Collier’s, Leslie’s, Boy’s Life and Ladies Home Journal or the illustrations for books like The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, or his wife’s children’s stories. There was also a period when Rockwell created more illustrations to accompany articles inside the Post (and other magazines like Ladies Home Journal) than for the covers. There are only a few representative works of this type included and only a few of the 49 calendar paintings Rockwell painted for the Boy Scouts of America. This is not to say the collection is deficient in any way. It is a monumental work that includes all Rockwell’s important works and many lesser‐known ones.
The Archive displays thumbnail images, in two rows of four, in chronological order, by date painted. One would expect the chronological order to go from left to right along the first row and then the second. Instead, the order runs on alternating rows, from top to bottom and left to right. Moving the cursor over a thumbnail will identify its title. Clicking on it will show a larger version, along with the title and a description. The enlarged picture gives a better appreciation for the work; but it does not fill the screen to allow the viewer to examine details. For example, if one wants to examine the three April Fool covers (1943, 1945, 1948) to find the “mistakes,” one would not be able to do so in the Archive.
The Gallery includes the second of these three covers and allows the viewer to examine the details. Rockwell deliberately included 45 mistakes and incongruities and the Gallery even has a button to compare one’s list with the artist’s. One man wrote to Rockwell claiming he had found 120 errors! The Scrapbook has links to the Gallery; but the Archive does not. Also, the links are only one way. They only go from the Scrapbook to the Gallery but not vice versa. One has to go to the menu and select Scrapbook to return. However, the software “remembers” one’s location in each section; so the viewer does not always have to start afresh.
Clicking on the arrows in the lower corners will move to the next or previous group of thumbnails. One can also move the scroll bar along the bottom of the screen, indicating the relative position of the group of thumbnails currently displayed. Moving it to the right or left will move more quickly among larger groups of thumbnails. One can also display the description for the next or previous painting without returning to the thumbnail by clicking on the next or back button, respectively.
Initially, Archive presents a chronological view of all the illustrations. One can also search for selected images by keyword, date, or topic by clicking on the radio icon at the bottom of the screen. One would expect that the keyword search would examine the title, descriptions, and narratives. Rather, it searches for words in the titles, or specified objects included in the illustrations, such as “doctor” or “Rockwell” (to retrieve the many illustrations in which the artist depicted himself or family members). This generally works fine; but there is an occasional glitch. For example, a search for “Moses” retrieves The Trumpeter (19 November 1950) that shows a boy practicing the trumpet while seated on a chair with fabric patterned after the work of Grandma Moses, a Rockwell family friend and Vermont neighbor. It does not retrieve The Homecoming (23 December 1948) that depicts Grandma Moses standing beside the Rockwell family as they welcome their oldest son Jerry home from the war.
Many of the descriptions identify the names of the models Rockwell used, particularly his Arlington, Vermont neighbors. Many posed for several Post covers ‐ some as many as 15. It would be nice to be able to search by these individuals to see how the artist painted them over time.
Take James K. Van Brunt for example. When he posed for his first cover (The Hobo, 18 October 1924), he sported a mustache eight inches wide from tip to tip. Rockwell used this model so frequently that Post editor George Larimer complained. About this time, the artist received a commission to paint the first full‐color cover for the Post (The Old Sign Painter, 6 February 1926). Rockwell felt he had to use his best model; but how to disguise the mustache? He offered Van Brunt $10 ‐ twice his usual modeling fee and quite a sum for the period ‐ if he would shave it off. To Rockwell’s dismay, the model’s protruding lower lip made him just as identifiable as before. Rockwell continued to use Van Brunt frequently; but he had to conceal any distinguishing characteristics. It is interesting to see how the artist solved this problem.
Because of his age, Van Brunt could not grow his mustache back to its former magnificence. When he posed for Dreams of Long Ago, 13 August 1927, Rockwell exaggerated the mustache as a tribute to his model. For Van Brunt’s last cover (The Busybodies, 12 January 1929), Rockwell portrayed him, minus his mustache, as two of the three women.
Mary Whalen was one of Rockwell’s favorite models “because she could look sad one minute, jolly the next and raise her eyebrows until they almost jumped over her head”. He liked her so much that he painted her twice in the same picture as twins on both sides of the Rockwell family in The Homecoming. He used her frequently, most notably in Day in the Life of a Girl (30 August 1952) and Triumph in Defeat (23 May 1953) where she sits outside the principal’s office tattered and bruised and sporting a black eye and a big grin. Less than ten months later, she returns in Girl at the Mirror (6 March 1954) as a pubescent girl contemplating her future. One can select paintings by date painted by entering a date range. For example, 19 January to 26 November will retrieve illustrations created between January 1919 and November 1926.
The topic option selects all paintings that deal with a specific topic. Topics include marriage/romance, holidays (including April Fool), Boy Scouts, armed services, sports, growing up in America, family, portraits, traveling, advertising, Saturday Evening Post, humor, politics, patriotism, at work, classic characters, at play, at school, and series. There is some overlap in these categories, such as sports and at play, for example; so the same paintings can recur in a variety of groupings.
Searches indicate the number of paintings satisfying the criteria and display them chronologically. This means that most series are discontinuous. For example, the Willie Gillis series is broken up by The Four Freedoms and other covers. To get them together, one could search by “Gillis” or “Willie Gillis”. This series presented a particular problem to Rockwell because Bob Buck, his model, enlisted in the Naval Air Service after the sixth cover; and the artist had to find a way to keep the series going for five more covers.
Norman Rockwell considered his art disposable and often gave the originals to the models after he had finished with them. The work was designed to be seen in reproduction (magazine covers) or in advertising. It’s interesting to visit a museum like the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts to compare the original art work with the published version to see how it was cropped or modified.
Advertising was the artist’s principal livelihood as it paid twice as much as a Post cover. Yet, a topic search only retrieves ten items, mostly work for the Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company, the Chrysler Corp., and the Kellogg Company. He painted many others to advertise tires, varnish, socks, and raisins, none of which is included here.
A comprehensive collection could easily extend to three or more discs. This monumental collection is a fitting product to serve as the flagship of Cinegram’s new Digital Treasures series. It is packed with information about the artist, his life, and his work. It is full of factoids (like his favorite brand of brushes) and entertaining and interesting segments to help the viewer appreciate the artist and his work. Norman Rockwell: The Man and His Art brings the artist alive for a generation that did not grow up eagerly waiting by the mailbox on Saturday mornings anticipating the next issue of the Saturday Evening Post. This is the most enjoyable product this reviewer has examined in years. It belongs in every library.
