Also Practising Art for Art's Sake....Norman Rockwell@125

#NormanRockwell125  आज नॉर्मन रॉकवेल (जन्म १८९४) आणि वसंत सरवटे (जन्म १९२७) या दोघांची जन्मतिथी आहे.

John Updike, ‘Always Looking: Essays on Art’: 
“...this (Norman Rockwell) most successful of twentieth-century commercial artists also practiced art for art’s sake....”

अगदी हेच वर्णन दीनानाथ दलालांना लागू होत....महाराष्ट्रातील most successful of twentieth-century commercial artists also practiced art for art’s sake....

शि द फडणीसांवरती मला रॉकवेल यांचा खूप प्रभाव जाणवतो... माझ्या मते भारतातील सामान्य जीवनाचे चित्रण करणारी, त्यात विनोद शोधणारी अशी फडणीसांची अनेक चित्रे  रॉकवेल यांच्या उत्तम चित्रांच्या दर्जाची आहेत...

पण ,फडणीसांची अद्भुतता रॉकवेल यांच्या चित्रात जवळपास नाहीच... फडणीसांची चित्रकारिता सुद्धा बरीच वेगळी आहे...

Deborah Solomon:

“Rockwell had celebrated the small and local, not the global and cinematic. But the emphasis on the common man that was central to America’s sense of self in 20th-century America gave way, in the television-centered 1960s, to the worship of celebrities, whose life stories and marital crises replaced those of the proverbial next-door neighbor as subjects of interest and gossip.”

आणि जे अमेरिकेत झाल, तेच भारतात झाल ... "the worship of celebrities, whose life stories and marital crises replaced those of the proverbial next-door neighbor as subjects of interest and gossip"...

Marriage License, June 11, 1955

Christopher Finch, 1988:

"There can be little doubt that this is one of Rockwell's finest  works. The idea behind it is simple enough: The artist contrasts the young couple applying for a marriage license with the elderly clerk who has seen it all a thousand times before. But the scene is evoked with such affection that it becomes suffused with complex resonances. The old clerk occupies an office that, like him, seems to belong to the past. It contains rows of dusty volumes and an ornate potbellied stove. Paint is peeling from the dingy walls and cigarette butts are scattered on the floor. But the tall sash window lets in the early-summer light, which falls on the young couple, bathing them in its glow and causing them to stand out from their surroundings. Their concentration on the task at hand is such that the surroundings have no meaning for them anyway. In this composition the play ofdarkness and light is used both to create the architecture of the painting and to produce an emotional effect on the viewer. Everything about this painting seems just right. Artists are notoriously critical of their own work, but in this instance it is impossible to think that Rockwell cannot have been satisfied with the result of his labors."

The Grocer’s Shop: a Woman Selling Grapes, 1672, 

Artist:  Gerrit Dou  (1613-1675)