Experiencing Joy Through Art

   Hi! I hope you had a great holiday weekend. Mine was pleasant and very enjoyable. Easter dinner at my house was delicious and I hope whatever Easter, Passover or other celebrations you had with you and yours was wonderful too.

   During holidays and family get togethers, I am inevitably reminded of the famous Norman Rockwell painting entitled “Freedom from Want”. I think this painting, perhaps more than any others by Rockwell, embodies what we all feel about our country as Americans. In this painting I see not the day to day reality of America, but the dream of what we have been, sometimes are and could be.

    The painting was created in 1942 as one in a series of four for the cover of Saturday Evening Post representing the “Four Freedoms”. A speech by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1941 inspired Rockwell to paint the series, and he depicts the America we were fighting to preserve in WWII.

   For the people who lived through those dark and lean war years, this cherubic family about to sit down to Sunday dinner is a reminder of the innocent society untouched by The Great Depression and the war that followed. A heralding of better times to come…and indeed they did. World War II was followed by the prosperous decade of the 1950s. 

   This painting also had one other heavy influence on American society that most of us today take for granted. Prior to this painting appearing on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post, Americans were pretty evenly split across the board as to what was eaten for Thanksgiving dinner. Some ate turkey, some ham, roast beef, chicken etc. At the Thanksgiving that followed the appearance of this illustration, 97% of American households ate turkey for Thanksgiving, and it has remained that way ever since. 

   Incidently the window behind the grandparents in the painting is a real place you can go to. Rockwell lived and worked in Stockbridge, Massachusetts and this window is in the dining room of a local establishment called The Red Lion Inn. I've stood there myself and it's quite inspiring to feel like you are part of Rockwell’s world. 

   Norman Rockwell’s paintings are so appealing because they capture our feelings about America rather than the reality of its existence. He captured the spirit of what we are when we are at our best.