Ebb and Flow of Opinion

Rockwell certainly went through the ebb and flow of critical opinion over the years. The "people" , of course, always admired him, much of the time for his 'realism' and storytelling, the very qualities that damned him with the professional critics. But times changed, the critics admired him and the people took him for granted. And then it changed again, and again. Such is life, in the art world and beyond.

I, too, ebbed and flowed in my opinion and admiration of his art. I feel his best work was before he used photos as reference and then many years later, when his work became a bit more impressionistic, or at least brushier. I disliked most of his story-telling paintings, but liked his paintings that illustrated text stories. But always he had his moments. I hadn't seen these two self-portraits until recently, but I really like them. And I'm suckered in by anything that refers to adventure, and then his watercolor of a Paris bridge makes me hunger for anything else he did in that style or medium. 

The fact is that just because we admire a person and their work doesn't mean we have to admire or like everything that person has ever done. As I get older, that's how it is with many of my artist heroes. I  (metaphorically) hold on to what I really like and give the rest back to the world. Then I build (metaphorically) my own little museum, somewhat like I'm doing with this blog.