VOA标准英语2009-Museum Honors Artist Who Captured Small Town

By Joseph Mok
Stockbridge, Massachusetts
11 November 2009

For a man identified so closely with small-town America, Norman Rockwell spent much of his life living in or near America's biggest city. He was born in New York City in 1894, and did not move to a small town - Arlington, Vermont -- until he was well into his forties. He spent the final 25 years of his life in Stockbridge, Massachusetts and this is where his museum is located.

Illustrating¹ the American experience

 
Audrey Manring
Audrey Manring is director of communications at the Rockwell Museum. She says he often asked people he knew to pose for him. "I think at the very beginning of his career he used some professional models. But over time, he relies more and more on, and then relies exclusively on, his friends and neighbors. And there was a very meaningful connection between people who live around him and pose for him," she says, "They really feel they are part of something special."

Claire Williams once posed as a model for an advertisement that Rockwell illustrated². It happened 50 years ago but the memory remains³ fresh in her mind. "Many times he would call you himself to come and model," she explains, "He picks up the phone and just calls you and sets a time and you go. It was fun." 

In addition to being a keen observer of people, Rockwell was good at capturing the beauty and the humor in the seemingly ordinary. He once said, "If there was a sadness in this creative world of mine, it was a pleasant sadness. If there were problems, they were humorous problems."

Art with a message

 
Cover from one of Saturday Evening Post featuring one of Rockwell illustrations
Perhaps Rockwell's most representative works are the more than 300 covers he made for the Saturday Evening Post. 

His series Four Freedoms was inspired by a speech President Franklin Roosevelt's gave during World War II about the four fundamental human freedoms: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from want and freedom from fear.

But he did many other works that are equally popular: his American presidents series, his boy scouts⁴ series, the quaint⁵ small town depicted⁶ in Stockbridge Main Street at Christmas, and his humorous Triple Self Portrait.

In 1963 Rockwell ended his partnership⁷ with the Saturday Evening Post and struck up a new association with Look magazine. His style of painting did not change, but the subject matter did. He focused more on sensitive social and political issues.

New Kids in the Neighborhood dealt with race relations in America. The black boy depicted in the picture was Wray Gunn. "It was the centerfold of Look magazine in 1967. This one particularly was dealing⁸ with the integration⁹ in an all-white neighborhood in Park Forth¹⁰, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago as I came to know," Gunn said.

 
Norman Rockwell
From the black children's white cat, to the white children's black dog, the busy work of the movers, and the neighbors peering out their windows in the background , each detail of the illustration creates an atmosphere of tension. Little did 13-year-old Wray and his seven-year-old cousin Tracy know that they would become a part of America's civil rights history.

Rockwell died in 1978, at the age of 84. In the years since his death, his work has retained its tremendous appeal.  Every year hundreds of thousands of people flock to this museum to see the work of a man whose brush eloquently¹¹ told the story of his America.

1 illustrating   

给…加插图( illustrate的现在分词 )； 说明； 表明； （用示例、图画等）说明

参考例句：

• He upstaged the other speakers by illustrating his talk with slides. 他演讲中配上幻灯片，比其他演讲人更吸引听众。
• Material illustrating detailed structure of graptolites has been etched from limestone by means of hydrofluoric acid. 表明笔石详细构造的物质是利用氢氟酸从石灰岩中侵蚀出来。

2 illustrated   

adj. 有插图的，列举的 动词illustrate的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• His lecture was illustrated with slides taken during the expedition. 他在讲演中使用了探险时拍摄到的幻灯片。
• The manufacturing Methods: Will be illustrated in the next chapter. 制作方法将在下一章说明。

3 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

4 scouts   

侦察员[机，舰]( scout的名词复数 )； 童子军； 搜索； 童子军成员

参考例句：

• to join the Scouts 参加童子军
• The scouts paired off and began to patrol the area. 巡逻人员两个一组，然后开始巡逻这个地区。

5 quaint   

adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的

参考例句：

• There were many small lanes in the quaint village.在这古香古色的村庄里，有很多小巷。
• They still keep some quaint old customs.他们仍然保留着一些稀奇古怪的旧风俗。

6 depicted   

描绘，描画( depict的过去式和过去分词 )； 描述

参考例句：

• Other animals were depicted on the periphery of the group. 其他动物在群像的外围加以修饰。
• They depicted the thrilling situation to us in great detail. 他们向我们详细地描述了那激动人心的场面。

7 partnership   

n.合作关系，伙伴关系

参考例句：

• The company has gone into partnership with Swiss Bank Corporation.这家公司已经和瑞士银行公司建立合作关系。
• Martin has taken him into general partnership in his company.马丁已让他成为公司的普通合伙人。

8 dealing   

n.经商方法，待人态度

参考例句：

• This store has an excellent reputation for fair dealing.该商店因买卖公道而享有极高的声誉。
• His fair dealing earned our confidence.他的诚实的行为获得我们的信任。

9 integration   

n.一体化，联合，结合

参考例句：

• We are working to bring about closer political integration in the EU.我们正在努力实现欧盟內部更加紧密的政治一体化。
• This was the greatest event in the annals of European integration.这是欧洲统一史上最重大的事件。

10 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。

11 eloquently   

adv. 雄辩地(有口才地, 富于表情地)

参考例句：

• I was toasted by him most eloquently at the dinner. 进餐时他口若悬河地向我祝酒。
• The poet eloquently expresses the sense of lost innocence. 诗人动人地表达了失去天真的感觉。