Norman Rockwell
The Underside of Innocence
Norman Rockwell’s scenes of everyday small-town life are among the most indelible images in all of twentieth-century art. While opinions of Rockwell vary from uncritical admiration to sneering contempt, those who love him and those who dismiss him do agree on one thing: his art embodies a distinctively American style of innocence.
In this sure-to-be controversial book, Richard Halpern argues that this sense of innocence arises from our reluctance—and also Rockwell’s—to acknowledge the often disturbing dimensions of his works. Rockwell’s paintings frequently teem with perverse acts of voyeurism and desire but contrive to keep these acts invisible—or rather, hidden in plain sight, available for unacknowledged pleasure but easily denied by the viewer.
Rockwell emerges in this book, then, as a deviously brilliant artist, a remorseless diagnostician of the innocence in which we bathe ourselves, and a continuing, unexpected influence on contemporary artists. Far from a banal painter of the ordinary, Halpern argues, Rockwell is someone we have not yet dared to see for the complex creature he is: a wholesome pervert, a knowing innocent, and a kitschy genius.
Provocative but judicious, witty but deeply informed, Norman Rockwell is a book rich in suggestive propositions and eye-opening details—one that will change forever the way we think about this American icon and his works.
“The brilliant Richard Halpern is essential reading in so many areas, but the slightly dusty and obligatory note in that ‘essential’ applies not at all to this roaringly entertaining and illuminating study of Norman Rockwell. Never satisfied with satire (neither of Rockwell nor his viewers) Halpern gives us a nuanced and persuasive image of our nation as it looks, generally, at its own innocence; and, quite specifically, at the innocence of its children. This is the most probing and valuable study of ‘innocence’ and the way it twists and turns in America that we have. If, like me, you grew up looking at Rockwell and having Rockwell look at you, there’ll be no book you could find that’ll tell you more about the nature of that vital and, just maybe, perverse interaction. Surely the finest work in cultural studies in at least a decade.”—James R. Kincaid, University of Southern California
“This probing meditation, which ties Rockwell to Freud, Brueghel, Pollock, Fischl, and above all sex, will likely generate some spirited debate. Profoundly attentive to the work of art, Halpern’s genial analysis offers unconventional and compelling insights on every page. Read it with an open mind and you will come away with new appreciation for the profoundly human dimensions of Norman Rockwell’s work.”—Michele H. Bogart, Stony Brook University
“This book asks the unexpected question, ‘What does Norman Rockwell want?’ At least one answer to this question must be an interpreter as canny, witty, perceptive, astute, and just plain responsive as Richard Halpern. Long the idol of the middlebrow and the favorite whipping boy of the cultural elite, Rockwell here stands revealed as an artist savvy about all the ways in which his work and the world it represented weren’t simply sweet, innocent, and wholesome.”—Michael Moon, Emory University
“This smart, witty, and provocative book dramatically reinterprets the art of Norman Rockwell. Richard Halpern makes a completely convincing case for Rockwell as an artist who deals with crucial issues in a complex and brilliant way. Far from being the technically proficient escapist, or the maddeningly sentimental apologist, Rockwell appears in this book as an artist who not only represents the most pressing issues of his culture, but the ways in which most people deal with those issues. Written with ease and charm, this utterly accessible book shows both what we want to see in Rockwell’s art—and how we disavow what we don’t.”—Anne Higonnet, Barnard College
List of Illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgments
A Note to Readers
1 Manufacturing Innocence
2 Ways of Not Seeing
3 Phallic Women, Adam's Apples, and the Fullness of the World
4 “That Kind of Man”
5 The History of Girls
6 Painting: A Middlebrow Art
7 Rockwell's Heirs
Notes
Index
You may purchase this title at these fine bookstores. Outside the USA, see our international sales information.
