Not too fast please. As if it were for an audioguide in a museum.
Norman Rockwell
Biography:
Born in 1894, Norman Rockwell was an American painter. He was a prolific artist, producing more than four thousand original works in his lifetime.
Many of his paintings portray an ideal American life with pastel colours. His use of faded hues tend to give his works a sense of the "good old days" but some of his masterpieces have other meanings, often political ones.
During World War II, he was much influenced by Franklin D. Roosevelt and tried to capture America's spirit at that time.
A major tragic event that also influenced him in his life was the burning of his workshop in 1943.
His favorite subjects at the end of his life were: civil rights, poverty, and space exploration.
He died in Massachusetts (USA) in 1978 at the age of 84.
Artistic Movement and Inspirations:
He belonged to the "realistic movement". He was an illustrator and worked for magazines such as "Look" or the "Saturday Evening Post". He liked to represent real-life situations and portraits of real people. He usually started painting from a real photograph.
His attention to details is one of the most important in American art history.
Very often, the realistic details in his paintings don't just represent reality. Those details are painted to attract attention because they are symbols for something else.
