Norman Rockwell

Norman Rockwell is an image of himself. We rarely, if ever, think of the man, but that he seems to embody the very feeling he displayed so prevalently in his work. Somewhere in our minds, Norman Rockwell is framed by a Saturday Evening Post heading, and carved into our psyche with the same sense of Arcadian Americana as the rest of his illustrations. He embodies, both in our imagination of himself and in the paintings he created, something we imagine our grandparents experienced, but never did, and something that many remember, that never happened. There is some false truth to which Rockwell points, that so many are willing to acquiesce to, not because it is factual, but because it is more perfect. It is the Prairie Home Companion, the Whit's End, the Little Annie Oakley of the collective imagined history. We love it not because it is accurate, but because it is warm. It is a truth of perspective that we can rest the oblique reality of experience against, and compare its "down-homey" ability. In Rockwell we have a shared mock nostalgia, something better to remember than what was.