Four Freedoms (Norman Rockwell)
This series has been the cornerstone of retrospective art exhibits presenting the career of Rockwell, who was the most widely known and popular commercial artist of the mid-20th century, but did not achieve critical acclaim. These are among his best-known works, and by some accounts became his most widely distributed paintings. At one time they were commonly displayed in post offices, schools, clubs, railroad stations, and a variety of public and semi-public buildings.
A critical review of these images, like most of Rockwell's work, has not been entirely positive. Rockwell's idyllic and nostalgic approach to regionalism made him a popular illustrator but a lightly regarded fine artist during his lifetime, a view still prevalent today. However, he has created an enduring niche in the social fabric with Freedom from Want, emblematic of what is now known as the "Norman Rockwell Thanksgiving".
Franklin Delano Roosevelt's speech
"In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.
The first is freedom of speech and expression—everywhere in the world.
The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way—everywhere in the world.
The third is freedom from want—which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants—everywhere in the world.
The fourth is freedom from fear—which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor—anywhere in the world.
That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called new order of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb."
Throughout his political career, Roosevelt championed the cause of human rights. In his annual State of the Union address to Congress on January 6, 1941, which was delivered at a time when Nazi Germany occupied much of Western Europe, he asked the American citizens to support war efforts in various ways. He stated his vision of a better future, founded upon four freedoms: "In the future days which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms," some traditional and some new ones: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.
Roosevelt's January 6 State of the Union address became known as his "Four Freedoms Speech", due to its conclusion that described the President's vision of a worldwide extension of the American ideals of individual liberties summarized by these four freedoms. To put it another way, Roosevelt's speech was known for "identifying the objectives of the war and revealing his hopeful view of the postwar world". The speech helped to awaken Congress and the nation to the dire war calling, articulate ideological aims of the necessary armed conflict, and appeal to the universal American belief in freedom. Domestically, the Four Freedoms were not something Roosevelt was able to achieve through simple legislation, although they provided a theme for American military participation in the war. Of the Four Freedoms, the only two described in the United States Constitution were freedom of speech and freedom of worship.
Rockwell and World War II
Between 1916 and his December 16, 1963 Kennedy Memorial cover, Rockwell created 322 magazine covers for The Saturday Evening Post, which was once the most widely read American magazine. In a pre-electronic era where mass production magazine color illustration was the most popular form of media, Rockwell became a national name, and by the 1950s was rivaled only by Walt Disney for his familiarity to the public among visual artists. During World War I, Rockwell had taken a bit of a back seat to more established illustrators under the editorship of George Horace Lorimer, who had died in 1937. Unfettered by Lorimer's restrictions, Rockwell saw the opportunity to illustrate the Four Freedoms as the chance of a lifetime.
Rockwell's covers highlighted the human aspect of the American war effort. The illustrations supported the effort by promoting war bonds and encouraging women to work and men to enlist. They employed themes of patriotism, longing, shifting gender roles, reunion, love, work, community, and family. In his role as a magazine illustrator during times of war, Rockwell draws comparisons to Winslow Homer, an American Civil War illustrator for Harper's Weekly.
The Four Freedoms had become an important theme for Artists for Victory. The consortium was one of several artists' organizations that provided the government with promotional artwork for the war. It also sponsored exhibits about global peace.
Rockwell was perceived as apolitical, but advocated "tolerance for differences, courtesy, kindness, and the freedoms that Roosevelt articulated". He believed Roosevelt's freedoms were worth fighting for, and he made numerous artistic contributions to the war efforts apart from the Four Freedoms. He is widely known for his idealized fictional wartime character Willie Gillis and his depiction of Rosie the Riveter. Some of his other war art is known by name, such as War News and Homecoming Soldier. He was responsible for encouraging individual monetary support of the war through posters like the 1943 Hasten the Homecoming.
Composition
"The job was too big for me ... It should have been tackled by Michelangelo."
Rockwell's Four Freedoms—Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Worship, Freedom from Want, and Freedom from Fear—were first published on February 20, February 27, March 6, and March 13, 1943, along with commissioned essays from leading American writers and historians (Booth Tarkington, Will Durant, Carlos Bulosan, and Stephen Vincent Benét, respectively). They measure 45.75 by 35.5 inches (116.2 by 90.2 cm) except for Freedom of Worship which measures 46.0 by 35.5 inches (116.8 by 90.2 cm). Rockwell used live models for all his paintings. In 1935, he began using black-and-white photographs of these live models extensively, although he did not publicly reveal he did so until 1940. The use of photography expanded the possibilities for Rockwell who could ask models to pose in positions they could hold only for brief periods of time. He could also produce works from new perspectives and the Four Freedoms represented "low vantage point of Freedom of Speech, to close-up in Freedom of Worship, midrange in Freedom from Fear, and wide angle in Freedom from Want".
In 1939, Rockwell moved to Arlington, Vermont, which was an artist-friendly community that had hosted Robert Frost, Rockwell Kent, and Dorothy Canfield Fisher. Of the move from New Rochelle, New York, Rockwell said "I was restless ... The town [of New Rochelle] seemed tinged with everything that happened to me". In New Rochelle, he had both endured a divorce and run with a fast crowd. Artists John Carlton Atherton, Mead Schaeffer, and George Hughes established residences in Arlington soon after Rockwell. The resident artists, Rockwell included, were mutually supportive and hired local citizens as their amateur models. Using photography and Arlington residents as models, Rockwell was able to capture what he referred to as "human-looking humans", who were generally working-class people, in an hour or so rather than hire professional models for the entire day. Rockwell paid his models modestly. Rose Hoyt, who was engaged for a total of three photographic sessions for Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Worship, earned $15 (equivalent to $279.71 in 2023) for her sittings.
When the US entered the war in 1941, it had three agencies responsible for war propaganda: The Office of Facts and Figures (OFF), The Division of Information of the Office of Emergency Management (OEM), and the Office of Government Reports (OGR). The OFF was responsible for commissioned artwork and for assembling a corps of writers, led by Librarian of Congress Archibald MacLeish. By mid-1942, the Office of War Information determined that despite the efforts of OFF in distributing pamphlets, posters, displays, and other media, only a third of the general public was familiar with Roosevelt's Four Freedoms and at most one in fifty could enumerate them. The Four Freedoms had been a "campaign to educate Americans about participation in World War II".
On May 24, 1942, Rockwell was seeking approval for a poster design at The Pentagon because the Artists Guild had designated that he'd advocate for the U.S. Army Ordnance Department. Robert Patterson, who was then United States Undersecretary of War, suggested revisions. On the same day, he visited with Thomas Mabry of the Graphic Division of the War Department's Office of Facts and Figures, which coordinated war-themed posters and billboards. Mabry relayed the need for Four Freedoms artwork. Rockwell returned home pondering the Atlantic Charter, which had incorporated the Four Freedoms.
Rockwell remembered a scene of a local town meeting in which one person spoke out in lone dissent, but was given the floor, and was listened to respectfully, despite his solitary opposition. He was inspired to use this scene to illustrate Freedom of Speech, and Rockwell decided to use his Vermont neighbors as models for an inspirational set of posters depicting the themes laid out by Roosevelt the previous year in a Four Freedoms series. He spent three days making charcoal sketches of the series, which some sources describe as color sketches. Rockwell's patriotic gesture was to travel to Washington, D.C., and volunteer his free services to the government for this cause. In mid-June, accompanied by Schaeffer, he took four charcoal sketches to Washington, where they stayed at the Mayflower Hotel, as the two sought commissions to design war art. During the trip, Rockwell was asked by the Boy Scouts of America to continue his annual creation of a new painting for their annual calendar by publishing representative Orion Winford. He was unable to hold Patterson's attention during their meeting, so he met with the new Office of War Information (OWI), where he was told "The last war you illustrators did the posters. This war we're going to use fine artists men, real artists."
On his return trip to Vermont with Schaeffer on June 16, they stopped in Philadelphia to meet with new Saturday Evening Post editor Ben Hibbs. Many accounts portray this visit as unplanned, but whether it was is unclear. Hibbs liked Rockwell's Four Freedoms sketches, and he gave Rockwell two months to complete the works. A June 24 correspondence from The Post clarified that both Rockwell's and Schaeffer's series would be published. By June 26, The Post's art editor James Yates notified Rockwell of plans for a layout of paintings with an accompanying essay or accompanying essays by President Roosevelt.
Rockwell's summer was full of distractions. At one point a Manhattan gastroenterologist prescribed a surgery of uncertain nature, though it was not performed. He had commissions for other magazines and business complications regarding second reproduction rights. He also had his Boy Scout commitment. Under time constraints, Rockwell made every excuse to avoid all other distracting assignments. In October, The Post sent its art editor to Arlington to check on Rockwell's progress. At about the same time, despite its Graphics Division chief Francis Brennan's outrage, the OWI began showing signs of renewed interest. In fact, after Rockwell was chosen the entire OWI Writers' Division resigned. The press release associated with the resignation asserted that the OWI was dominated by "high-pressure promoters who prefer slick salesmanship to honest information. These promoters would treat as stupid and reluctant customers the men and women of the United States." There was further turmoil in the OWI from a faction supporting work by Ben Shahn; Shahn's work was not used in propaganda because it lacked general appeal. Several artists were commissioned to promote the war, including Jean Carlu, Gerard Hordyke, Hugo Ballin, and Walter Russell. Russell created a Four Freedoms Monument that was eventually dedicated at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
The series took seven months to complete, and was finished by year-end. Supposedly, Rockwell lost 10 pounds (4.54 kg) from the assignment. As Rockwell was completing the series, he was motivated by news of Allied setbacks, a fact that gives the work a sense of urgency. Models included a Mrs. Harrington who became the devout old woman in Freedom of Worship and a man named Jim Martin who appears in each painting in the series (most prominently in Freedom from Fear). The intention was to remind America what they were fighting for: freedom of speech and worship, freedom from want and fear. All the paintings used a muted palette and are devoid of the vermilion Rockwell is known for.
