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Norman Rockwell (1894-1978) painted people and so did Rene Magritte (1898-1967). What is the difference?
Many art critics look down on Rockwell and many people may not like Magritte too much. I have found that those who do not know much about Magritte, however, think his artwork is intriguing enough to view, while few art critics take Rockwell seriously as anything other than an illustrator.
It
would be an interesting survey of people to see how many find interest in a
Magritte, and how many art critics think of Rockwell as anything but an
illustrator.
One
parallel between the two artists is that both put their hand to commercial art,
as Magritte took to designing wallpaper early in his career in order to earn an
income.
Rockwell, of course, is famous for
his covers adorning the Saturday Evening
Post and, later, illustrations for Look
magazine and other periodicals.
A
point to ponder is how much of the commercial aspect infused Magritte’s art and
how much fine art found its way into Rockwell’s painting.
Interestingly,
there are two Rockwells and there are two Magrittes.
There
is the Magritte of early cubism and futurism, struggling to get at another way
to see the world. Then he saw a painting
by Chirico and—eureka!—it inspired to him take another route as in 1926 he
created his first “Magritte” work, The
Lost Jockey. It is close to the
approach of the movement of Surrealism and, eventually, the group invited him
to become a member. Magritte’s art was
the iconic type of surrealism with its everyday views given a strange twist.
Painting
in this style, it occupied him for the rest of his life except for the vache or “nasty” period during WW2.
Rockwell
began illustration right at the beginning and always thought of himself as
such. Nonetheless, after his long association
with the Post, he took on work with Look magazine and began to paint about
the Civil Rights movement. He had
already painted the Golden Rule in
1961 after reading some ideas about comparative religion, and having failed to
begin a similar project for the UN, he set about to represent a diverse depiction
of ethnic and religious groups.
Following
this, one of his paintings, The Problem
We All Live With, remains a strong statement during a time of unrest.
So
what is the difference? Rockwell painted
scenes as one may like to remember them, the romanticizing of illustration, but
later he perceived how conflict might bring together humanity. Magritte painted scenes that he derived from
other styles, but soon broke out to present his haunting vision of the
unexpected in human perception.
