Norman Rockwell: Behind the Camera
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Dan Clode
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Norman Rockwell: Behind the Camera
This is an abridged review from my Art Book News blog at blogspot.
There have been many books on Norman Rockwell over the years, but Norman Rockwell: Behind the Camera is the first to shed light upon the reference photographs from which he often painted. Published in 2009 this book features a selection of images from among some 18,000 black and white negatives that are held by the Norman Rockwell Museum at Stockbridge, Massachusetts. This collection of images was recently digitised to ensure their preservation and this book is a product of that effort to make the photographs more accessible to researchers and the general public.
Admirers of Rockwell’s art should consider this book unmissable, given the fresh ground that it covers. It will also have some appeal to illustrators and portraitists, because of the description and examples provided on Rockwell’s working methods.
Why did someone with such a sharp drawing and drafting ability take such heavy recourse to use of photography? It should be understood that Norman Rockwell laboured under huge pressure to produce paintings at a rapid rate to meet deadlines of magazine editors and to satisfy other lucrative commercial commissions for his art. And complicating his pressured work pace, Rockwell was a perfectionist, always striving to render convincing details from foreground to background.
To spare time from doing dozens of preparatory drawings for each painting, Rockwell eventually began instead to use photographs and select among them before choosing a final composition. He quickly discovered that the snapshots enabled him to convincingly capture a broader range of exaggerated facial gestures and dynamic action poses than his models could sustain during a long sketch sitting. These two melodramatic elements soon became key ingredients in a contrived Rockwell tableau. The photos did not displace the need for models, costumes, props or any of the rigour of painting preparation, like sketches and colour studies. But these snapshots did ensure great efficiencies: they saved re-sittings by models, avoided movements of sunlight; and made possible a far more phenomenal output in one man’s career than otherwise could have been conceivable.
Author Ron Schick, an expert in photographic art, explains the considerable efforts that went into composing the photos and what Rockwell was aiming to conjure up. It is a tale of an artist scouting locations, assembling props, and amusingly positioning and directing the models like actors in a play. Part of Rockwell's appeal lies in his ability to show heightened moments of human drama and capture the personality of his models in his art. And part of the appeal of his paintings is that they accurately chronicled the clothing fashions, home decorations, workplace layouts and personal oddments of contemporary American life. His works have an air of authenticity that the artist could not have achieved by working from the imagination alone. Norman Rockwell excelled both as a comedic storyteller and a quasi social historian.
The visual extravaganza in this book is well supported by pithy and pertinent stories about the featured artworks, spiced up with quotes from Rockwell, his models and other associates (Rockwell was a little abashed at his use of photography, but he has written several accounts of his working methods for the benefit of fellow illustrators who have sought to learn his secrets). Schick threads the book together with writing of his own that is informative and perceptive. The book is a good length at over 200 pages, but Rockwell was such a prolific artist that it is hard not to wish for even more of his paintings in this enjoyable monograph.
There have been many books on Norman Rockwell over the years, but Norman Rockwell: Behind the Camera is the first to shed light upon the reference photographs from which he often painted. Published in 2009 this book features a selection of images from among some 18,000 black and white negatives that are held by the Norman Rockwell Museum at Stockbridge, Massachusetts. This collection of images was recently digitised to ensure their preservation and this book is a product of that effort to make the photographs more accessible to researchers and the general public.
Admirers of Rockwell’s art should consider this book unmissable, given the fresh ground that it covers. It will also have some appeal to illustrators and portraitists, because of the description and examples provided on Rockwell’s working methods.
Why did someone with such a sharp drawing and drafting ability take such heavy recourse to use of photography? It should be understood that Norman Rockwell laboured under huge pressure to produce paintings at a rapid rate to meet deadlines of magazine editors and to satisfy other lucrative commercial commissions for his art. And complicating his pressured work pace, Rockwell was a perfectionist, always striving to render convincing details from foreground to background.
To spare time from doing dozens of preparatory drawings for each painting, Rockwell eventually began instead to use photographs and select among them before choosing a final composition. He quickly discovered that the snapshots enabled him to convincingly capture a broader range of exaggerated facial gestures and dynamic action poses than his models could sustain during a long sketch sitting. These two melodramatic elements soon became key ingredients in a contrived Rockwell tableau. The photos did not displace the need for models, costumes, props or any of the rigour of painting preparation, like sketches and colour studies. But these snapshots did ensure great efficiencies: they saved re-sittings by models, avoided movements of sunlight; and made possible a far more phenomenal output in one man’s career than otherwise could have been conceivable.
Author Ron Schick, an expert in photographic art, explains the considerable efforts that went into composing the photos and what Rockwell was aiming to conjure up. It is a tale of an artist scouting locations, assembling props, and amusingly positioning and directing the models like actors in a play. Part of Rockwell's appeal lies in his ability to show heightened moments of human drama and capture the personality of his models in his art. And part of the appeal of his paintings is that they accurately chronicled the clothing fashions, home decorations, workplace layouts and personal oddments of contemporary American life. His works have an air of authenticity that the artist could not have achieved by working from the imagination alone. Norman Rockwell excelled both as a comedic storyteller and a quasi social historian.
The visual extravaganza in this book is well supported by pithy and pertinent stories about the featured artworks, spiced up with quotes from Rockwell, his models and other associates (Rockwell was a little abashed at his use of photography, but he has written several accounts of his working methods for the benefit of fellow illustrators who have sought to learn his secrets). Schick threads the book together with writing of his own that is informative and perceptive. The book is a good length at over 200 pages, but Rockwell was such a prolific artist that it is hard not to wish for even more of his paintings in this enjoyable monograph.
