The Unrealistic ‘Real Norman Rockwell’

628 Words3 Pages
Self-portraits have been a method of self exploration used by many artists since before the invention of the mirror. An artist uses self-portraits to transcend the barrier of time and be immortalized in history. Norman Rockwell, one of the greatest American painter and illustrator, created a famous piece called Triple Self-Portrait, which can be interpreted as timeless; an attempt of the creator to be eternal.
Norman Rockwell was born in New York City in 1894. Since a little kid he knew that he wanted to be an artist, so he left high school to attend the Arts Student League, where he learned the technical skills on which he applied all through his career. In 1916, when Rockwell was just 22, he painted his first cover for The Saturday Evening Post, a magazine that had another 321 covers created by Rockwell, including the Triple Self-Portrait.
Created in 1960, The Triple Self-Portrait shows three different views of himself, three different sides of him, created after a long and hard process. The picture shows pencils on the floor, a trash full of drafts and smoke, and on the left corner of his canvas there are five little self-portraits in different positions; all these elements showing what a hard time he had to come up with the painting. At the right corner of the canvas, there are pictures of four of the greatest artists that created self-portraits in history: Durer, Rembrandt, Van Gogh, and Picasso. Those pictures show the admiration he had for the artists and that maybe he could create something as extraordinary as the creations of those that are eternalized for their pieces of art.
Commonly, artists have a purpose on what they have created. The Triple Self-Portrait was made to illustrate a Saturday Evening Post story on Rockwell, headlined “America’s Best Loved Artist Finally Tells His Own Story”, and the interpretation of some of the symbols he uses in his

More about The Unrealistic ‘Real Norman Rockwell’

Open Document