EXTRACTS: Illustrators issue 19 © 2017 The Book Palace (96 PAGES in Full edition)

96 From The Inside: A Bad Idea Sometimes even the greatest artists can have bad ideas. This was Norman Rockwell’s worst idea ever. One of the most beloved illustrators of all time was Norman Rockwell. His paintings of the American people gave viewers a look into the typical American family and their social mores. Nicknamed ’America’s most popular artist’, Rockwell’s cover paintings provided a strong motivation to buy any magazine. His uncanny sense of enticing us into the American family during their dinners, holidays, and work, made the American way of life endearing, albeit from a purely whimsical and nostalgic point of view. Rockwell also brought a sense of humour into his paintings evoking the reaction “the same thing happened to me”. However, there are times when even a good idea can backfire. Such was the case with Mrs. O’Leary’s Cow. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the story, which incidentally was true, it involved a certainMrs. O’Leary who was milking her cow: the cow kicked over a kerosene lantern, and caused the great Chicago fire of 1871. While in reality this was a disaster that killed 300 people, destroyed nine square kilometres of the area, and left 100,000 residents homeless, the incident in itself seemed highly humorous—a cow started a fire that nearly destroyed a whole city! Rockwell set out to paint the irony of it all and thought it’d be a great idea for a calendar: “So I painted it,” Rockwell reminisced in his autobiography. “Rear view, the cow’s behind prominently displayed, occupying, in fact, the better part of the picture—and Brown and Bigelow published it.” How popular was the calender? It turned out to be Rockwell’s worst failure. The painting itself wasn’t bad, but who would want to look at the rear end of a cow for twelve months? To make matters worse Mrs. O’Leary was a hefty and homely middle-aged woman, so not even a hint of feminine allure to rescue the painting. As Rockwell pointed out: “What you want in a calendar is a quiet sentiment… Something that will last for an entire year, that people won’t get tired of looking at. Nostalgia’s good. Or a pretty girl. Or a bouquet of flowers. A joke is bad; it’s sure to pall by April. To fill a calender with a cow’s hind end is sheer folly.” Even the masters make mistakes! ● RIGHT: Mrs. O’Leary’s Cow oil painting circa 1945. Published as a calender by Brown and Bigelow . Would you like to stare at this image for a whole year?