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Love Song presents the artist's major theme, the different stages of life.  Here, a young girl wistfully listens to music played by two elderly men.  The painting's title is printed on the music sheet.  An old map suggests rural America.

Rockwell, America's premiere illustrator, created more than 300 Saturday Evening Post covers, capturing the daily lives of average Americans.

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Norman Rockwell's Love Song, which was reproduced as an illustration in the December 1926 issue of Ladies Home Journal, presents one of this popular artist's major themes: youth contrasted with old age. A young girl listens wistfully as two elderly men play the flute and the clarinet. Leaning against the metronome is a music sheet indicating the tune's-and the painting's-title, "The Love Song." Rockwell, an avid collector of antique maps, added an old map to the scene, enhancing its quaint setting.

Rockwell was born in New York City and trained at the Chase School of Art, the National Academy of Design, and the Art Students League. In 1910, he set up a studio in New Rochelle, New York, the home of such famous illustrators as J.C. Leyendecker and his brother Frank, and Howard Chandler Christy. Rockwell was a young man of thirty-two when he was commissioned to paint The Love Song, yet he had already been designing cover illustrations for the Saturday Evening Post for a decade. Between 1916 and 1961, Rockwell illustrated more than three hundred covers for that magazine alone. He produced some of the most recognizable images in American art, always treating his subjects-"average" Americans in everyday situations-with warmth and humor. In his later years, Rockwell became more political. His 1965 illustration The Problem We All Live With dealt with segregated education in the United States.

Maybe . . . I unconsciously decided that, even if it wasn't an ideal world, it should be and so [I] painted only the ideal aspects of it.
-Norman Rockwell, 1960

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Norman Rockwell

The Love Song, 1926

oil on canvas

38 3/8 x 42 7/8 in.

Gift of Anne G. Blackman and Sidney W. Blackman in memory of Freeman E. Hertzel

Learn More

Norman Rockwell was born in New York City.  As a young boy he spent his summers at country farms which he believed influenced his subject matter.  After entering high school, Rockwell began his art training at the Chase School.  He then enrolled at the National Academy of Design and later the Art Students League.  One of his teachers sent Rockwell to a publisher, where he received his first assignment illustrating a children’s book.  His next assignment came from Boys’ Life magazine, where he eventually became art director.  In 1916 Rockwell went to Philadelphia to see the editor of The Saturday Evening Post.  The paintings he brought with him were accepted for covers.This success opened the opportunity to sell his work to Life, Judge, and Leslie’s magazines.  After World War I, Rockwell began producing advertising illustration for Jell-O, Willys cars, Orange Crush and calendar illustrations for the Boy Scout calendar.  In response to a speech by President Franklin Roosevelt, Rockwell painted his most famous work the Four Freedoms, which was published in the Post and used to sell war bonds.  Rockwell worked on special stamps for the US Postal Service and posters for the Treasury Department, the military and Hollywood movies.  He produced illustrations for Sears mail-order catalogs, Hallmark greeting cards and illustrated books.  When the Post cut back on its illustrations, Rockwell continued to create work for Look and McCall’s magazines. In 1993 a Rockwell museum opened near his home in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.  The two-volume book of Rockwell’s illustrations the institution published contains four thousand illustrations by the artist.

The Love Song, which appeared in the December 1926 issue of Ladies Home Journal, presents one of Rockwell’s major themes, youth contrasted with old age.  Here a young girl listens wistfully to the flute and clarinet played by two elderly men.  Leaning against the metronome is a music sheet indicated the tune’s title, “The Love Song.”  Rockwell, an avid collector of antique maps, displays an old map to enhance the rural American setting of this scene.  The linear quality of the scenes contrasts dramatically the impressionist landscape seen through the window.  Rockwell uses this contrast to imply that his talents are variable even though his means of expression is illustration.

Reference

Numerous books exist on Norman Rockwell and his illustrations; the one listed below is one of the more scholarly publications.

Maureen Hart Hennessy, Judy L. Larson, Norman Rockwell. Norman Rockwell: Pictures for the American People, New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1999. ISBN-13: 978-0810963924