il ragno
02-20-2006, 07:04 PM
WW1 signalled among other things the end of the Belle Epoque - a half-century of glorious art best described as idealized realism, rendered with astonishing levels of painstaking craftsmanship, was now driven from the salons and galleries - and the monstrosities of modernism marched in to replace them.
However, this was the same period when commercial and advertising art in America reached its own peak, in many ways representing the last stand of the European traditions. Although this was for-hire work, the subject matter assigned and the desired results often overly sentimental if not crassly so, the craftsmanship is stunning. And if you hung around long enough, and worked steadily, you got to create a unique body of work that seen in retrospect might mark you a master who happened to be constrained by market forces during a bad century for art. (On the bright side, your work was seen and awed over by millions and millions of people, rather than a few thousand at most.)
http://curtispublishing.com/images/NonRockwell/9041203.jpg
Xmas 1904
Oberon may hoot at Norman Rockwell and find him a boob, but the fact is that great artists toiled in such fields as the Sat Evening Post, the Hearst press, and the advertising pages of slick magazines all the time. JC Leyendecker, a German immigrant who began his legendary career at the turn of the century, was the most famous of the pre-Rockwell Post artists. Norman worshipped him, and with good reason – there is indelible craftsmanship and imagination in these images.
http://curtispublishing.com/images/NonRockwell/9050422.jpg
Easter 1905
However, this was the same period when commercial and advertising art in America reached its own peak, in many ways representing the last stand of the European traditions. Although this was for-hire work, the subject matter assigned and the desired results often overly sentimental if not crassly so, the craftsmanship is stunning. And if you hung around long enough, and worked steadily, you got to create a unique body of work that seen in retrospect might mark you a master who happened to be constrained by market forces during a bad century for art. (On the bright side, your work was seen and awed over by millions and millions of people, rather than a few thousand at most.)
http://curtispublishing.com/images/NonRockwell/9041203.jpg
Xmas 1904
Oberon may hoot at Norman Rockwell and find him a boob, but the fact is that great artists toiled in such fields as the Sat Evening Post, the Hearst press, and the advertising pages of slick magazines all the time. JC Leyendecker, a German immigrant who began his legendary career at the turn of the century, was the most famous of the pre-Rockwell Post artists. Norman worshipped him, and with good reason – there is indelible craftsmanship and imagination in these images.
http://curtispublishing.com/images/NonRockwell/9050422.jpg
Easter 1905