RUSSIAN SCHOOLROOM  

.This painting is an oil on convas painting by Norman Rockwell in 1967.
The title is Russian Schoolroom.

.Russian Schoolroom depicts a group of Soviet pupils in their classroom.
They’re probably looking at their teacher who’s not in the painting.
We can see a bust of Lenin, with flowers around, who’s partially visible there,

.This painting is divided into two parts :

Fist, in the foreground, we can see children who’re probably listening to their teacher, and who’re really quiet, with their hand on the desk.
The boy on the left is wearing a blue uniform and a red scarf around his neck.
Next to him, there ‘s a girl.
She’s wearing a black uniform and a red scarf too.
There ‘re really serious.
In the background, we can see children who’re listening to the teacher…And a pupil who is looking outside.
In fact, it depicts students seated at their desks, looking in the direction of a bust of Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin, except for one student gazing out a window.

It’s like the boy doesn’t care of the autority, he’s not like his classmates.

‘’Happy Birthday Miss Jones’’

1) Introduce the picture

This document is an oil painting by Norman Rockwell entitled ‘’ Happy Birthday Miss Jones’’. It was painted in 1956 by Norman Rockwell. This painting appeared on the cover of the Saturday Evening post published on March , 1956. The original oil painting belongs to film maker : George Lucas.

2) The topic

This painting represents a perfect 50s american classroom . The pupils wrote messages for their teacher’s birthday on the blackboard. It’s a surprise for their teacher.

3) Describe the picture

This oil painting is divided into 3 parts :

– In the foureground we can see the pupils

– In the middle ground we can see the desk with the presents

– In the background we can see the teacher and the blackboard

The scene takes place in an american classroom with pupils sitting patiently in front of their teacher. The teacher has just arrived, she is holding her hat and her coat. She is looking at her pupils with a little kind smile : she has discovered the blackboard with birthday wishes. The teacher and pupils are nice and properly dressed. On the wooden desk, there are some presents for the teacher : orange, apple, flowers and paquetages. One of the children have a blackboard eraser on the top of his head, an other eraser and a chalk are on the floor in front of the teacher. On the left of painting, we can see a piece of American flag.

We can remark that all the children look at their teacher and teacher looks at her pupils, they look at each others, and these regards draw a triangle in the painting. The others lines in the painting, are horizontal and vertical (blackboard and wall).

4)Analyze and interpret

We can easily imagine that Norman Rockwell wanted to paint a lovely and ideal classroom with cute pupils and a kind and respectable teacher. There is a lot of tenderness in this scene. The teacher sems so tall, it’s because she’s the main character in this oil painting.

I’m surprised to see only white people on this oil painting. During the fifties, there was racism in America, so this painting shows us the segregation : black children didn’t go to school with white children. White people were considered superior race. The flag shows the American patriotism during the cold wear.

5) My feelings

I think this painting represents very well the american school during the fifties : white pupils with a lovely female teacher. I think it’s a stereotyp image of an ideal school. We can oppose this oil painting with an other painting : ‘’The problem we all live with’’.

In the second oil painting, going to school is a real problem because the little girl is black.

This oil painting has been made by Norman Rockell in 1958, no we can see it in Norman Rockell Museum in Stockbridge. It’s call « Before the shot » because it pictures a doctor who is going to vaccin a little boy. He had made 4 years after the first vaccin for poliomyélite to show that the science progress. It’s Jonas Salk, an american who found it.

On this painting we can see the doctor who is prepare the vaccin and the boy on the right, who is waiting the doctor, standing on a chair and starting remove his clothes. He is looking at a paper on the wall, it’s maybe the doctor’s graduate.We can think they are in the doctor’s office.

TRIPLE SELF-PORTRAIT

Norman ROCKWELL

    « Triple self-portrait » is an oil painting did by Norman Rockwell in 1960. It was on cover of the Saturday Evening Post, an american magazine, the thirteen of frebruary 1960. It represent Norman Rockwell who was painting a self-portrait.

     The scene takes place in Norman workshop, there is only him, the painting is very realistic. In the middle there is Norman Rockwell who is sitting on a stool, he is leaning for look at his reflexion in the mirror which is at his left. Norman is wearing a blue shirt, a white pantalon, round glasses and he is smoking a pipe. He is having a paint paddle in his left hand, with his right hand he is painting the self-portrait. The mirror is very beautiful and clean, the contour is golden and above there is an eagle with an american badge. The mirror is putting on a chair, and there is also a book and a glass with a purple liquid. In front of Norman there is his painting, it represent Norman but he his looking at younger than in the mirror, he is having his pipe, it is in black and white. On the easel there is a golden helmet, on the left there are drafts and on the right there are other self-portrait, like picasso and Van Gogh self-portraits. In the bottom right-hand corner there is a bucket with paper wich burn, because we can see smoke. The picture is illumated because Norman used light colours.

     Certainly Norman admired Picasso, Van Gogh, Dürer and Rembrandt because he wanted to do like them. The painting is representing Norman younger than reality, maybe he wants to be like this or he wants the public see him like on the painting. The dominants colours are blue, red, white, the american flag’s colours and the golden, a noble colour. There are some details like the helmet, the bucket, the glass or his pipe but I can’t describe their meanings.

     I like this painting because it is very realistic, it is original and it is illumated so we want to look the painting.

This document is an oil painting and it is untitled baby cries & sitter. The document is taken from the magazine Saturday Evening post. The painting deals with the children education.

May be the scene takes place in the baby’s bedroom. The characters are a baby and his sitter. There are many light colours especially the blue, withe and yellow colours. On the floor there are toys, a book, a broken lollipop and a feeding bottle full of milk. The child wears clean, yellow and rich clothes, and beautiful shoes whereas the sitter wears an uniform composed of a blue dress, a white apron, a white headdress and long black boots.

In the foreground the baby is crying. In the tope right-hand corner we can see the sitter who seems desperated, she looks right to the sky.

We can notice that the baby has many things but he is crying so we can supopose that he was most spoiled or he want the only one he hasn’t got : his parents. Maybe the sitter have just made everything to calm the baby unfortunatly, because she looks so desperated.

The sitter wishes he would be aware of how lucky he is.

The artist criticizes the parents or absence of them. They would have spoiled their children and they miss him.

The Facts Of Life

The Facts of Life is a Norman Rockwell’s oil painting.

 On this paintIng we can see two characters: probably a father and his son. There are 3 cats too. The boy seems be 12 or 13 years old. He(wearsa light blue jeans, sneakers and colored T-shirts. He’s sit on a white armchair.  He put his face in his hands, and seems vague, even lost. Behind the 2 characters, a wall covered with an wallpaper with hens, cocks and chicks.

In the face of him, his father sat on another white armchair. He wears a white pants, a white shirt and brown shoes, glasses too. They speak in Face to face and the father is explaining something to his son .

In effect, the age of the boy, demonstrates that she is begening a teenager, and is coming in  the puberty. His father seems to explain him a what is the real  life, and the future changes which he is going to know. The boy is leaving gradually the childhood and look very innocent. The cats which are playing represents the childhood and the wallpaper’motives rpresent  the cycle of the life. If I chose this painting, it is because me too,  like many other boys,  I knew this  kind of scene with my father. When a boy is beggening a teenager, the discussion between a father and his son or a discussion between a mother and his daughter  is a real rite.

Enzo Deschamps 3eme A

This is ‘Girl at mirror’ painted in 1954 by Norman Rockwell. It was used for The Saturday Evening Post magazine.

The painting is very realistic. We can see a girl sitting on a little red chair looking at herself in the mirror. The mirror is the center of the painting, it is in the image but also is the image itself because without it we couldn’t have seen the girl’s face. The large mirror is not on a wall but on the floor, supported by a chair. We can imagine the girl was not able to see herself entirely.On the ground there is a red lipstick, a hairbrush, some face powder and a doll. There is a magazine on the girl’s knees, open to a page where we can see Jane Russell, a Hollywood Star.

We can imagine that the girl wants to look like a woman because she put makeup and a white dress on. We can guess that the girl doesn’t see what she would like to see when looking at a mirror. Her doll, which is on the left as if the girl decided to leave her childhood behind, does not appear in the mirror so we can think that the girl doesn’t want the doll to be in the reflection. The girl has braids in her hair and put them in a bun. The makeup on the ground makes us think of toys on the ground when children play with them. The girl looks like she’s thinking and looks a bit worried as if she never will look like the women on her magazine.

I think the painter brilliantly illustrates the opposition between being a girl and a women. Even Even colours are in opposition. The colours used are dark and brown, except for the girl who is like a soft white light. The child is pure but the world around her is dark and gloomy.

This document is an old oil painting, untilled « The American Way of Life ».

It was painting by Norman Rockwell in 1944, during the WW2.

This painting shows a soldier who is feeding a little girl. The girl seems to be 5 or 6, the soldier seems to be 35 or 40.

The scene takes place in a house, looks neglected, or destroyed.

Colors look like vintage postcard. This painting is anyway very realistic, it looks like photography.

The painting is centred on two characters.

There is a contrast in that the soldier, who is expected to be doing the war, who has a submachine gun, feeding this girl. Maybe he takes a kind of break, a moment of sweetness after the horrors that he has probably seen.

Despite the fact that he is a soldier, he has a facial expression very sweet, very calm, and friendly.

As to the little girl, she’s not afraid, even if there is a gun just next to her.

Maybe for the soldier, the little girl reminds him his own daughter. What inspires him probably some pain. And, maybe the girl has lost her parents and this soldier is for her a parental figure.

Maybe they will run away together, we’ll never know.

I find this painting very beautiful, it shows that even during the war, people don’t behave like always animals, people without heart, and keep inside them love, and kindness.