Yeah. Most of the time though, us low-earning workers are too exhausted to go to city council meetings 😑

@@staceyhart9746 with close to a 0 chance of you getting listen

good detail for analysis here, thank you

The working class American is damn near absolutely meaningless to 99% of US politicians at this point

Thank you for pointing this out! It's absolutely vital to understanding the piece. A viewer at the time would immediately notice the class difference. It's even a tad subversive.

plus, the commenter is acting like drawing a naked woman pussy first is somehow compelling and a revolutionary emancipation thing

I don’t think a post is responsible for this, many people haven’t even seen it and think the same but the real reason they think that is they don’t know anything about the art itself

@@invaderzim6904 The "Post" is the Saturday Evening Post, a now-defunct print magazine. Norman Rockwell worked for them as an illustrator and did their cover art. They wanted well done but innocuous art that would appeal to their white, middle-class customers.

@Samibamiwami - right! We become desensitized to the things we see often.

His figures and compositions are some of the most diverse in all of "commercial art". The details and colors of his works 👌

I believe it’s due to the problem of people thinking cynicism = smart, which leads to a surplus of idiots up there own asses thinking anything is happy/hopeful is stupid and anything saying “humanity sucks, everything is awful” is automatically brilliant

@@christopherauzenne5023 you just summed up the entire rick and morty fandom

@@christopherauzenne5023 you fricking hit the nail holy shit

@@christopherauzenne5023 "I believe it’s due to the problem of people thinking cynicism = smart" well, to be fair, there are a lot more happy, dumb people. it is a blessing.

critics like to value sorrow more than joy most of the time. In reality, genuine joy can be harder to capture and also more powerful than sorrow. It takes a great artist to portray it without becoming goofy

Isn’t it problematic to associate white with purity and goodness and black with the opposite. I think he made the outfit white to contrast with her skin and simplify it, nothing more

@@Koki-hc3mw No one's skin is paper white. The color is very stark and is associated with purity more than it is skin color, I think.

@@zarinaa1135 yes, it is associated with cleanliness. A lot of people of Afro-Caribbean do wear all white outfits as well.

@@Koki-hc3mw lots of angels and biblical figures were painted in white because the color white is symbolic. It’s been used for probably more than a thousand years. So he definitely used white to show her pureness, because almost everyone can understand his point just by looking at it.

@@Koki-hc3mw no. unless you specifically make the fact that someone being black is impure, i don't think it's problematic

In a Democrat city full of Democrat voters just like how Little Rock Nine were targeted by all Democrat voters & their Democrat Governor.

@@chouchoue pardon me but that doesn't have anything to do with what happened here and her strength under great adversity. Either side of the aisle.

@@let_uslunch8884 It was all Democrats. It took Republican POTUS to use army2 force Democrat Arkansas to integrate Blacks. Arkansas kept on being Democrat and denying Civil Rights Act for 30 years. Bill Clinton with his KKK friend Senator Byrd. Of course it's important. Democrats are still cracking the whip.

I ever wonder if the other people yelling and heckling Ruby would feel if their children ever got deaths threats and verbal abuse aimed at them or how much of the kids that grew up realized how shit their parents actually were.

@@girlscanbedrummers5804 exactly!

How can someone force you to like a particular kind of art or artist? Art is so subjective. I think one of the reasons Rockwell's art is seen as 'prudish and boring' is that it can be a little uncomfortable to see overdressed people in illustrations all the time, just as it can be equally unsettling to see badly drawn nudes. Maybe this is why Rockwell's art incites so much criticism, for being so 'clothed' as to appeal to only kids. I have the same feeling about hyperrealism; it is so boring that I fail to appreciate the hours of effort and skill behind making that sort of art. But I find Rockwell's skill beyond compare with anyone else's. I read a bit about his painting process and it's amazing how he created those exaggerated expressions and always included humour in his art.

@@sunayana4479 I compare hyper realistic paintings, drawings, etc. to the 2019 remake of Lion King. While it’s true it may have taken a lot of technical skill to create it, it’s just a copy of something else with no heart and soul. Maybe there is hyper realistic work that this comparison does not apply to, but to many, it does. I’ve seen enough hyper realistic portraits of Morgan Freeman, lol.

It's crazy, because magazines like The New Yorker have vibrant art on their covers.

Me whenever someone says Rockwell was not that skilled: have you seen the skin he painted? The wrinkles and colors and blending? He didn't always just paint "pretty" people either. I think he'd have a better rep if his art hadn't been in magazines and advertisements. If they hung in galleries only, snobby people would like them better imo.

I think Amos Sewell is underrated. He was way ahead of his time in that he sort of understood how absurd this 50s imagery of happy perfect families was. He's not technically ourstanding but he makes me laugh and illustration should do that. As in, illustration should be clear and make you think, feel etc. before you start picking on the technique.

He did paint very mundane things though. I don't agree with calling him bland at all, but it's understandable how people could see a few of his works and conclude that so quickly and dismissively.

His art for the post was definitely inoffensive (mostly because they gave him rules for what he could and couldnt paint and had the final say in what would be used as the cover). but bland? hell no. His style is extremely recognizable to this day.

Only if 'bland' is insulting. Plain rice well cooked is bland compared to most food, but can be delicious. One only needs a palate for subtleness. Cheers! :)

He was a master at portraying emotion through facial expressions.

Yeah, it portrays an innocence and hope for the next generation. They are “different” but it's superficial. They are still all kids and can still be friends, despite what they may have been told.

I also think the fact that one pet is a cat and one is a dog is significant. Because cats and dogs stereotypically “hate” each other, showing them curious about each other may be symbolic of how black and white people are “supposed” to hate each other, but these children don’t care.

@@ioncekilledamanwithmyshoe Not to mention the black kids' cat is white and the white kids' dog is black.

Funny enough, paying attention to their poses really amuse me. The black children look rather stiff, as if they're trying to keep themselves proper in a way in front of the white Children. And the white children look jittery and curious, as if they dont, (or at least aren't "supposed ") to care about how they behave in front of the black children. Maybe I'm looking too deeply into it, but then again there's no such thing in art.

@@blackprimrose7541 i think you're right.

Was the problem the girl? Rockwell was one of my heroes, as a young aspiring artist, but this was only because I regarded him as a great draughtsman and story-teller. However, I grew up and, over time, it became clearer to me that the primary weakness in all of Rockwell’s 'political' work is that it looks at America through rose-colored glasses. The Four Freedoms represents America’s much touted ideals not America’s reality. Not even today. Not even close. 'The Problem We All Live With' presents only idealized Whites protecting a Black child. Her attackers, who we know far outnumber them by millions, aren’t visible! One partially obscured epithet and single piece of smashed fruit barely represent the very real threat that girl lives with - Irrationally MURDEROUS White racists. Not a single rage-distorted face or fist balled in anger is shown. Only White heroes. Only protectors. Though unacceptable for the cover of The Saturday Evening Post, it’s feel-good, idealized America imagery at it’s Rockwellian finest. I believe Rockwell a good man but this work remained in the thrall of the same White racism that, still today, has too great an influence on the 'American DREAM' for us to be able to regard the work as genuinely political. It hides the truth of America as effectively as sheets hid(e) the faces of Klansmen and sensibilities of thousands of Whites so deeply enured to racism that they’re in deep denial regarding their own role in maintaining it as a means to evade being ostracized by the racists that exists among their own families and friends if not their own hearts.

@@idcook - you've completely misinterpreted "The Problem We All Live With." The focus is not on the girl's protectors at all...they're anonymous, headless figures, almost part of the background. The focus is on Ruby herself, especially the contrast between her (small, innocent, and eager to learn) and the adult-world violence that surrounds her. The painting's message is clearly something like "Seriously, people? A little girl going to school is such a huge 'threat' that she needs bodyguards to protect her from you? Isn't this ridiculous? How are you not ashamed of yourselves?" Norman Rockwell was a brilliant visual storyteller, and he knew how to reach an audience. Showing the rage-distorted faces of the protesters would allow a white audience to look on the protestors as "others," as people dumber or more violent than them. It lets suburban white folk say "Well, at least I'm not like those dumb Southern rednecks. The problem is them, not me." Rockwell instead put the viewer smack dab in the place of the protesters, seeing what they see...but in a way that makes them see exactly what it is they're afraid of: an innocent little girl, no different from any child going to school. It makes a viewer ask, "If I were there, would I have felt like them?" Norman Rockwell did see things through rose-colored glasses...but that's because he saw human beings as basically decent. He saw the similarities between all of us, and usually aimed to show that in his pictures. The stories he told through his art were small, personal stories. "The Problem We All Live With" is not about racism...it is about Ruby Bridges on her first day of school. It's about an innocent child and the irrational, inexplicable hatred that surrounded her. It says to the viewer, "There is nothing about this girl to be afraid of. She's not the problem...WE are."

@@idcook No, the problem Rockwell is alluding to is the adversity that this little girl has to face just to get an education. What kind of question is that? Which he absolutely is. There are honestly only a few artists out there that can really capture a scene like Rockwell. Everything he ever did oozes personality. You have to understand that Rockwell lived in a time where the collective sharing of miseries in America had united most people living there, and the culture was one of optimism, American exceptionalism, and opposition to fascism. The Four Freedoms is propaganda, sure. But it’s the good kind. It got us fighting the Nazis. Of course, I don’t believe America has EVER kept the promises of her constitution, especially for us non-whites, but that “Exceptionalism” was the culture that Rockwell came up in. He couldn’t help being born white, and he couldn’t help not knowing the full score. Ignorance is not a sin, stupidity is, and Rockwell wasn’t a stupid man by any means. I don’t believe you can judge the past with modern sensibilities. It isn’t fair. My reading of “The Problem” was that little Ruby, surrounded on both sides by towering, faceless men, and presumably screaming whites on one side, was in danger, and the artist wants you to feel protective, like how the photo of the earth from the moon makes it look small and fragile. We don’t need to see twisted white faces, all of that is heavily implied. At least to me, Ruby looks scared. We’re supposed to understand that this crowd of whites, is so threatened by a tiny child learning, that they threw shit at the wall, and then to finish the indignation, scrawled one of the ugliest words in the English language on it. All for this small, innocent, child. I believe Rockwell knew exactly what he was doing here. He didn’t need to show any of what you were talking about, a 1960’s audience would have gotten the message. And I believe it’s definitely made to make the viewer feel shame. It’s why the title is such an apropo name for it all. We, as Americans, must all live with the indignation of racism, because it affects us all, one way or another. No, I simply disagree. There’s nothing “feel good” about The Problem We All Live with. It’s a frightening painting, because it beautifully renders a national shame in oil paints. I don’t disagree that many stupid people today have adopted his art as a symbol of white capitalism or something like that, but they obviously misconstrue it. Rockwell painted mostly banal consumerist art, yes, but it was GOOD. And the minute he was cut loose from his job, he started painting more provocative pieces from a white-guy perspective that he couldn’t help having. I guess what I’m saying is, he was one of the greatest draftsmen of all time, and his heart was in the right place. A world without his legacy is a lesser one.

Do you know what expressionism means?

@@brandonchavez9924 - that's a great reply, and I totally agree!

That's amazing

Thank you for sharing your Grandfather's (and YOURS!) history with us here... I love these little factoids you can only get from others. That's the best part of social media!

Woah, that’s amazing!!

Happy and carefree depictions of humanity are seen as being easy to use as propaganda, and it is. It's the art equivalent of the phrase 'journalism is whatever someone doesn't want published, all else is public relations'. Very few things worth depicting in art are positive. That said, if you think that the art world is ONLY obsessed with angst or horror, you haven't read much art criticism lately. Some of the classic art critic buzzwords are things like 'playful' or 'humorous' or 'ironic'. Parodying existing artworks alone is a really widespread trend on its own.

All expressions are represented of life. If we only had one genre of film then it would not reach many, same goes for art. We need a variety of it made from all walks of life to truly communicate with others.

@@olivercuenca4109 I am an art major, people often create sorrowful scenes as way of coping and others usually resonate with it as their own way of coping. Most scenes I have learned about in my art history classes have had darker routes because art at the end of the day is one person trying to communicate. And sometimes the message they are sending is a plea to be understood or a certain plea for help. It why even with religious art we get scenes of the saddest moments of the figure’s story. It’s true that happiness can be used for propaganda but I see just as but grief and anger sketches for the same ads.

@@matchamochi781 that's very insightful, thank you!

why not both?

not to mention that conservatism didn't always mean daydreaming fascist. Conservatism used to only be an economic belief rather than the shitstorm of conspiracy and idiocy it is today.

@@oogooboggins5956 it isnt that today

@@stanisawzokiewski3308 True, why not. Conservative doesn't mean reactionary, after all.

@@stanisawzokiewski3308 It definitely gets a new meaning today in a quickly dissolving society, that can't keep the promises of freedom, that progressives started with some 60 years ago. That glue of trust that had kept society together, which is the basis of freedom and what Rockwell mainly emphasized in his art, hasn't been replaced with a new working cultural system.

I'm very happy that effect didn't go unnoticed! Thanks!

Because they're not important factors in most art pieces.

I think most people realize that actually, it's just that they disagree that "Americana and nostalgia" is inherently valuable in the way you imply when you say they're "missing" from modern art. It's called bland because it looks like every other product churned out to appeal to one demographic that's had a monopoly on American visual art for centuries. That kind of monopoly has essentially reiterated these same ideas and visual tropes again and again, outside of Rockwell, with an insistence that these ideas do in fact reflect "the past", "real Americans" and "ordinary life". In effect painting rosy-cheeked white kids and friendly cops at the soda fountain is no less political (and no more objective) than Socialist Realism.

Thank you Elizabeht! I'm happy you enjoyed the video!

Ha, there’s a print of The Marriage License in my house. 😛

Thank you for the recommendation!

I used to take frequent vacations there due to Tanglewood (a famous park for concerts) one of my favorite passtimes was to hang around the Red Lion Inn, which is featured in one of his populare paintings. ( Try the soup) He was like "local celebrity" and everyone I knew there seemed to all have a least one print of his, somewhere in their homes.

"Need" used to be one of the meanings of "want". So yes, that's exactly what it shows: freedom from poverty and hunger.

The people in the painting have needs - they just happen to have been met, so they no longer ‘want’.

Exactly. When FDR said "freedom from want" he was speaking of hunger and abject poverty, not desire.

That's often the problem with the drift of language. When the meaning of words changes over time the intent of statements using them gets lost or distorted.

@@DamnedSilly “well regulated militia” 🙄

Thanks, Kim Jong-un

Unironically the facebook comment was defending "pretty art" that wasn't saying anything compared to art that was communicating something. Anytime someone says prude its because their sexual gratification is threatened or criticized

They are marching, which is fitting. And if they were dancing a jig, would that not -- in its own way -- be fitting too? Cheers! :)

lol your comment with that icon and name really go together

yeah its like the backgrounds look painted but the people look so much like photos, you'd think it was a mixed-media collage if you didn't know better

I would not have used the word 'surreal'. Cheers! :)

Aw thank you so much!

Ruby was pretty aware actually. She's talked about before, she's still alive on fact and so are most the women who terrorized her, that she knew they didn't want her at the school and that's why she was the only student in the class. I can't remember if either she or the one teacher willing to teach said it, but she was descrubed as an eager student. I'm sure she didn't know the act that changed the law for her to go there, but Black children know racism from experience and the precautionary lessons parents have to give. Even more so back then.

Thank you for watching! That's so sweet of you!

Difficult to be free from want when the entire agricultural-industrial complex demands you buy more to furnish them with persistent annual profit growth.

Freedom from want is about having enough yes, but not about whether you are content with it. Cheers!

That is amazing. I hope you have the collection insured.

Thank YOU for watching, commenting and enjoying! It's great support!

Thanks!!

a bloody eagle

I think it's bland but tasty and enriching. Like quality steamed rice, versus a heavily spiced dish. Bland is underrated. Cheers! :)

I also agree . I’ll choose Norman Rockwell over any erotic art . 0ur world right now has embraced degenerate mindset . What a disappointing thing

And telling a story is the best art.

Thank you very much!

Thank you Ivy!!!

could you link me the art? i wanna check it out myself

@@fartnutte1724 same, I'd love to see their depictions

That painting and "Girl With the Black Eye" are my two favourites. They are a great portrayal (in the context of the time period) of the strength of women.

"raw ordinary" very well said!

Bland is underrated.