A Pilgrim`s Progress 1921

Norman Rockwell painted "A Pilgrim's Progress" with oil on canvas, and you can almost feel him at the easel. I imagine Rockwell starting with a flurry of thin washes, mapping out the chase, building up to the thicker impasto in the boy’s face. Look at the saturation. A symphony of earth tones, punctuated by the pop of the boy’s astonished expression. What a predicament! This painterly touch, this visible presence, this feels so different to the photo-realism we see today. It’s pure narrative. He’s channeling a whole history of American illustration, but making it his own with that touch of humor. The arrows are flying every which way, the turkey is askew on the boy's back, one imagines Rockwell chuckled as he made this. Artists are always stealing from each other, riffing on the past, it’s an endless conversation of shapes and colors across time. Painting is a form of alchemy. It’s subjective. So go with your gut. What do you see? What do you feel?