Rockwell and Conservatism

One account of Rockwell has it that he was a semi-repressed "mere" illustrator throughout much of his career--prevented by the Saturday Evening Post from painting anything challenging or ugly.  But once he left the Post in the early 60's, he was able to follow his conscience and paint as he saw fit.  Hence, he found himself painting his well-known "civil rights" pictures, among other things.

On this view, much of Rockwell's work can be more or less discarded as somehow inauthentic, and Rockwell's status as an artist is secured principally by those few late pictures.

An Experiment in Criticism

We love CS Lewis for things like the Space Trilogy or The Abolition of Man, or the Screwtape Letters.  Oh, or Narnia.  But of course he was an English Professor, and he published a good deal in his own area of expertise.  One such work--one which must have been among the last things he published--is An Experiment in Criticism.  In this post, and one or two future posts, I will run through some of the ideas from this book and connect them to Rockwell criticism.

Why Rockwell?

Writing about Norman Rockwell is an odd pastime for an analytic metaphysician.

I don't believe I've explained on this blog why I am writing about Norman Rockwell.  The reason for this is that I do not find myself very interesting, and I imagine you don't find me very interesting, either.  The blog is about Rockwell, not about me.  Still, maybe one quick post by way of justifying the project.