Day trip...

I drove to Stockbridge, MA to the Norman Rockwell Museum to look at the original of his painting, Southern Justice (AKA: Murder in Mississippi) and came away haunted not only by the power of the piece but also how poorly it was treated. Not just by the museum, which had it in a back room next to the famous Ruby Bridges painting (The Problem We All Live With), but how it was dismissed by its creator and how "Look Magazine" didn't even use it.

"Look" used this abstract study by Rockwell as the illustration in its story about the KKK's murder of 3 civil rights workers...and it's awful. It's got the basic pose down, but the young men are semi-human blobs facing hints of shadows. The focus is soft, unreal, more a Goya-like impression than the sharp, precise painting above. The whole idea of this hideous slaughter of innocent people is diminished by that choice, and is close to inexcusable.

I know Rockwell thought the anger had gone out of the final product, but oh my God was he wrong. Andrew Goodman lies on the ground, dying, in pain, and the detail of his hands gripping the earth as he tries to live is chilling. Michael Schwerner holds James Chaney and looks at what he knows will be his killers...and while his face is stoic and his pose almost submissive, the expression in his eye holds pure terror mixed with disbelief. And his grip on a bloody and dying James Chaney, who's desperately fighting to stay alive, is stronger but more shaken, not semi-heroic, like in the study.

This shows why artists cannot decide for themselves how their work will be perceived. Nor can their curators, apparently. No prints or pictures are offered for sale of this painting. Nothing but a post card was available. I guess I can sort of see why. People like how Rockwell sugar-coats things.

Look at the Ruby Bridges painting -- it's a horrible event made palatable by the cute dress, stoic attitude of the child, and 4 faceless men stiffly posed in suits marching in step to protect her. The only jarring note is a smashed tomato on the wall next to a soft rendition of the N-word. Not one of the people hurling hate at her is seen, not even their shadows. But you can buy a dozen different size posters and pictures and lithographs and refrigerator magnets of that one.

I think Southern Justice is Rockwell's best work. I looked over everything and nothing else he did has the power and depth of that painting, nor did anything else affect me like this one. And just to add to the indignity...the museum was having an exhibit of Andy Warhol's works -- with his litho of Richard Nixon to the left of the painting, as if mocking it -- and James Warhola's illustrations for SF books and "Mad Magazine"...and The Garbage Pail Kids having more play and interest than this image.

I never paid much attention to Norman Rockwell, before, but Southern Justice has elevated him in my esteem.