AND ANOTHER THING
Critics run for cover when a popular artist starts to become an Old Master
PAUL JOHNSON
John Updike, writing in 1990, said he looked at a 1950 Rockwell painting `Shuf- fleton's Barbershop' every day, finding in it what he called 'avid particularising'. I know exactly what he means. There are very few Rockwells which I have not wanted to look at closely, usually for a long time, and again and again. There are fewer than a hundred painters in the whole history of art of whom that can be said.
Some people laughed at me for hailing Rockwell as a great painter in my book, A History of the American People, but I think that for once I am swimming with the tide. The Rockwell Center in Stockbridge, Mas- sachusetts must be one of the most popular museums in the world, crammed from dawn till dusk with delighted visitors crowd- ing round the originals of much-loved prints. And one of the further pleasures of this enchanting place is that in the nearby little towns you can recognise among the locals the children and grandchildren of the originals whom Rockwell painted with ded- icated veracity. His paintings and sketches are now increasingly collected, and on the rare occasions when an oil comes on the market it fetches over a million dollars, sometimes much more.
It is true that the art critics, who enjoyed a competitive orgy of dismissive sneering when Rockwell died in 1978 — the New York Times's summary of him as an 'ami- able anachronism' was about the kindest comment — are still loth to take him seri- ously. Robert Hughes, who recently pro- duced a large tome on American painting (excellent in places, downright silly in oth- ers), called Rockwell 'the Rembrandt of Punkin Creek' and referred to his 'depth- less narrative clarity'. Edward Lucie- Smith's American Realists (1994) ranks him as a mere 'illustrator' and convicts him of 'sentimentality'. But more and more books about Rockwell are being published, and I detect signs of a critical reappraisal by such scholars as Karal Ann Marling of Minneso- ta University. Twenty years after his death, Rockwell's work is beginning to strike per- manent roots.
Nor is this surprising. I have a theory that gifted painters who pursue their voca- tion with a lifetime's resolution always establish their merit in the end. In matters of taste, you can ignore some of the peo- ple all the time, and all the people for a time, but not all the people for ever. Rockwell had all the conscientiousness and dedication of a Renaissance artist- craftsman, and his methods of work — building up a painting by sketches from life, detailed studies in crayon, gouache and oils, full-size cartoons and alternative versions in oils to get the composition exactly right — would have done honour to a Florentine studio c.1470. He used photographs, as most painters do now, but only as an aide-memoire. An aspiring painter today who wants to produce in time genuine works of beauty, as opposed to the prevailing art fashion of the Serota- Saatchi-Rosenthal dictatorship, could do worse than make Rockwell a model. He had that combination of modesty, allow- ing him to make use of suggestions and criticism, and a steely belief in his own aims, which makes the true artist. The rest was sheer, gritty hard work, all day, every day.
Rockwell was not, except early in his career, an illustrator. He was more a moral- ist-observer like Hogarth, a painter who wanted to make improving points about the world he saw. He lacked Hogarth's dogma- tism. He was far less original. On the other hand, his technique was superior. Like Hogarth, he had gusto, an unbounding rel- ish for visual energy — his 'Rosie the Rivet- er' (1943) touchingly recalls Hogarth's bril- liant oil-sketch, 'The Shrimp Girl', though it was deliberately painted with allusions to Michelangelo's Sistine Sibyls, a typical Rockwell touch.
Rockwell's travel narratives, like 'Union Station', 'Commuters', 'Breaking Home Ties', are in the spirit of Frith, and often much better done. He could paint urban landscapes with touching fidelity, and his rendering of a New England town, 'Home for Christmas', which is in the Stockbridge Museum, recalls for me Vermeer's 'View of Delft' in its gentle care for topographical details. Indeed, Rockwell's true affinity was with the 17th-century Dutch, their opti- mism, their love of family, neighbours and locality, their exuberant heightening of sim- ple pleasures and tender moments. Rock- well was excellent at mealtimes: 'Boy in a Dining Car', 'Saying Grace', 'Turkey Din- ner' (also known as 'Freedom from Want'), the last reminding me strongly of Jacob Jordaens's wonderful work in the Kunsthis- torisches Museum, Vienna, The King Drinks'.
There is another parallel between 'Turkey Dinner' and Jan Steen's 'As the Old Sing, So Pipe the Young', in the Mau- ritshuis. Both painters make the same point: there is joy in seeing a family of all ages having a good time together round a groaning board. Rockwell and Steen often worked along similar lines. Ceteris paribus the innocence of 'The Marriage Licence' recalls Steen's beautiful 'The Wedding of Tobias and Sarah' in Brunswick. Such Steen masterworks as 'The Drawing Les- son', 'Rhetoricians at a Window' and 'The Merry Threesome' show exactly the same combination of intense interest in ordinary people doing things they love and astonish- ing virtuosity in depicting them, which Rockwell produces again and again. There is no lack of subtlety either. `Shuffleton's Barbershop', probably Rockwell's greatest work, has three distinct systems of light, like Pieter de Hooch at his most ambitious, and some of the mysterious quality of a much larger, but similar work, Velazquez's 'Las Meninas'.
Critics dismissed Rockwell for the usual trade union reasons. They have nothing to say about pictures which explain them- selves. Rockwell gave them no mediatory function. There was nothing in Rockwell for them. If a person says of a painting, 'Oh, I love that!' and takes it to his bosom, the critic is out of a job. But as time passes and Rockwell's portrait of an age moves into distant history, explanations will be needed, as indeed they have long been for Steen and Jordaens. Then Rockwell will slowly come to be ranked among the Old Masters, as he is already firmly wedged in humble hearts and minds.
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