Hello there, DU! Ready for today’s art quiz? It’s “Another Back Story Challenge!”

[Iterate]

85. Well, one figure serenely attempts art and the other struggles with a tax deadline

As an artist, Rockwell must have taken at least some note of the difference. Art vs. accountancy. He did it with some comedy, some self-deprecating comedy, and a sense that it was a culturally shared and comic occasion. If there wasn't an element of condemnation in it there would be no need for the lighthearted cover. In fact, it would have been out of place.

His character isn't heroic, so the metaphor of creating an American nation as art through taxes can be shot down. There is other art of the 1945 era that does reflect a heroic national self-image, but he's not encoding it into his piece. And Stalin was very unfunny.

So I'd say that at least he's presenting a critique of his own culture and iconography, but with a spoon of sugar. And I can see now that I can't be so dismissive of Rockwell in the future, as he might have set me up for an appreciation of Vermeer when I was young.

All of the above gets more complicated if we learn the costume of Vermeer's figure marks him as an idle wannabee.

Rereading "Vermeer in Bosnia". Now I wonder why there are no men in "The Little Streets" and the facades are in decline.