Triple Self-Portrait
{{Short description|Oil painting}}
{{Italic title}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=July 2023}}
{{Use American English|date=July 2023}}
File:Triple Self-Portrait.jpg 1960. Norman Rockwell Museum.]]
Triple Self-Portrait is an oil painting by American illustrator Norman Rockwell created for the cover of the February 13, 1960, edition of The Saturday Evening Post.{{harvnb|Bogart|1995|pp=1–2}}
Description
Triple Self-Portrait is an oil painting on canvas measuring {{convert|34.5 x 44.5|in|cm}}.{{Cite journal |last=Hales |first=Peter Bacon |author-link=Peter Bacon Hales |date=Autumn 1995 |title=Surveying the Field: Artists Make Art History |url= |journal=Art Journal |volume=54 |issue=3 |pages=40 |doi=10.2307/777581 |issn=0004-3249 |jstor=777581}} Set in a white void, it depicts a rear-view Rockwell sitting at an easel producing a self-portrait. A gold-framed mirror topped with an eagle is set up to the left on a chair; Rockwell can be seen in its reflection as a thin and bespectacled man. On the chair in front of the mirror sits a glass of Coca-Cola and an open book.
On the canvas in front of the illustrator is an unfinished sketch of himself in his idealized art style.{{harvnb|Bogart|1995|p=2}} On the right side of the canvas Rockwell pinned self-portraits by Albrecht Dürer, Rembrandt, Vincent van Gogh, and Picasso.{{harvnb|Halpern|2006|p=47}} A piece of paper with sketches sits on the left. In total, there are seven self-portraits depicted in the work.{{cite news |last1=Gouveia |first1=Georgette |date=3 July 2001 |title=Rockwell Revisted |page=3E |work=The Journal News |location=White Planes, New York |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-journal-news-capturing-middle-americ/128341828/ |access-date=16 July 2023}}
Reception
According to Michele Bogart, the painting shows that Rockwell saw himself as split between an artist and an illustrator.{{harvnb|Bogart|1995|p=3}} According to Deborah Solomon, by not painting his eyes in the reflection, Rockwell shows that he rejects "the popular myth of artists as heroic seers".{{harvnb|Solomon|2013|p=336}} Further, she sees the work as Rockwell's "manifesto" by depicting the way American Realism is divorced from the reality found in a mirror. Alexander R. Galloway disagrees with Solomon's interpretation and reads the painting as avoiding questions about how artists build meaning instead of answering them.{{Cite journal |last=Galloway |first=Alexander R. |author-link=Alexander R. Galloway |date=Autumn 2008 |title=The Unworkable Interface |url= |journal=New Literary History |volume=39 |issue=4 |pages=941 |issn=0028-6087 |jstor=20533123}}
See also
References
=Citations=
{{Reflist}}
=Bibliography=
{{Refbegin|indent=yes}}
- {{cite book |last1=Bogart |first1=Michele H. |title=Artists, Advertising, and the Borders of Art |date=1995 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |location=Chicago |url=https://archive.org/details/artistsadvertisi00boga/page/2/mode/2up}}
- {{cite book |last1=Halpern |first1=Richard |title=Norman Rockwell: the Underside Of Innocence |date=2006 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |location=Chicago |url=https://archive.org/details/normanrockwellun00halp/page/46/mode/2up}}
- {{cite book |last1=Solomon |first1=Deborah |author1-link=Deborah Solomon |title=American Mirror: The Life and Art of Norman Rockwell |date=2013 |publisher=Picador |location=New York |isbn=978-0374113094 |url=https://archive.org/details/americanmirrorli0000solo_s7q5/page/336/mode/2up}}
{{Refend}}
{{Norman Rockwell}}
Category:Paintings by Norman Rockwell
Category:Works originally published in The Saturday Evening Post