American painter and illustrator Norman Rockwell is best-known for portraying an idealized image of American life during the 20th century, one that has attracted equal amounts of criticism and praise. Nowhere is this more evident than in his depiction of the Thanksgiving dinner, in the now iconic Freedom from Want, which presented a white, middle-class family gathered around a glistening turkey, basking in the warm glow of shared wealth and emotional connection.
As much as the painting’s indulgent tone angered Europeans struggling with wartime austerity, and has sparked racial controversy, it also became the quintessential ideal that so many Thanksgiving dinners aspired to be. We track the painting’s underlying meaning and reception over the years since its creation.
Why Did Rockwell Paint Freedom from Want?
In 1941, American President Franklin D Roosevelt made his Four Freedoms Speech, which boasted the four human freedoms the US would provide for the world: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. In 1943, Rockwell produced his Thanksgiving painting in response to the third, Freedom from Want, for the cover of The Saturday Evening Post, where he was a regular contributor. With its ostentatious representation of love, food, and wealth, the painting came to symbolize Roosevelt’s utopian dream, and encouraged the American public to support what the war effort were fighting for. It became a key part of the artist’s larger ‘Four Freedoms’ series, all made throughout World War II to promote a potent message of patriotism.
Why Was the Design of Rockwell’s Painting So Important?
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Rockwell’s painting stages the family surrounding the table, forming a frame around the plentiful food and meticulously arranged tableware. Family members are brimming with energy and anticipation, and we are drawn into the scene by the cropped man on the bottom right corner, whose smiling eyes meet ours. Rockwell pulls us up the center of the image with a passage of bright white on the tablecloth, to the plump, golden turkey. It is held out by the family matriarch, who is shadowed by her husband, dressed in black, to create a striking visual contrast. Rockwell thereby presents us with what was at the time the stereotypical family ideal – a white, middle-class family, where women cook and men provide.
Rockwell spent hours working out the staging of his artworks, and photographed models posing in place in order to give his work the most believably real quality. This is evident in the layout of Freedom from Want, which is carefully arranged to create an inviting atmosphere of warmth and familiarity. He designed his image to act as a great comfort to the American public during turbulent and uncertain political times, by affirming traditional American values.
How Did Rockwell Use Color?
In Freedom from Want Rockwell’s use of color is bound into the artwork’s overall meaning. Bright white seems to stream in from the background window and flood across the table, catching glistening tableware and the glossy skin of family members. This lends the entire work an angelic glow, emphasizing the image’s idealized, utopian qualities, and the Biblical significance of Thanksgiving. Elsewhere, Rockwell introduces passages of green across the wallpaper and vegetables to symbolize lush fertility and growth, while warm, mellow browns throughout the family member’s skin, the foreground fruit, and the crisp, cooked turkey lend the image a comforting, golden glow.
Was Rockwell’s Painting Controversial?
Taken at face value, particularly today, Rockwell’s painting suggests the artist held deeply conservative values around family and tradition. In reality, the models for the painting were an eclectic mix of the artist’s friends, neighbors, employees, and family, which suggests Rockwell saw value in chosen family, and the people who we choose to bring meaning into our life. But when the image made its way to war torn Europe, it caused great offence to the many thousands who were struggling with austere food shortages and starvation.
Unsurprisingly, the painting has sparked ongoing controversy for promoting such a puritan, white vision of American life, making it deeply problematic, even if Rockwell later revealed a pro-civil rights stance in later artworks. This is an issue the painting continues to be plagued by today. Despite its issues, the painting one of those images that is deeply embedded into the public consciousness, as revealed in the countless parodies that poke fun at the image’s sickly-sweet sentimentality.