Thanksgiving: Mother and Son Peeling Potatoes

"One of the most loathed duties for a soldier is kitchen patrol, KP.  Yet here is this recently discharged soldier gladly, even lovingly, peeling potatoes." (http://www.best-norman-rockwell-art.com/1945-thanksgiving-mother-and-son-peeling-potatoes.html)

Norman Rockwell's milkman had just arrived home from Europe after serving in the 9th Army Air Corps. Richard Hagelberg had survived 65 daylight bombings and fought at one of the biggest battles of all, D-Day.  Now he was back on his dairy farm in Arlington, Vermont for the first time in five years.  

Rockwell requested that he and his mother pose for his latest Thanksgiving painting.  He had already tried two sets of models, neither of whom fit the bill.  Now, he suggested to Hagelberg that he and his mother, Saara Hagelberg, pose.  Initially, the returned soldier declined.  However, after the painter offered him $15 for an hour's work, he obliged.  

The Thanksgiving scene features a mother, in a simple dress and apron, peeling potatoes in a kitchen. Her son, garbed in his military uniform, joins her in the task.  "One of the most loathed duties for a soldier is kitchen patrol, KP.  Yet here is this recently discharged soldier gladly, even lovingly, peeling potatoes."  The soldier is so relieved to be home.  We can just imagine the conversation that is taking place.  The memories must come flooding back to the soldiers of Thanksgivings past.  

No longer forced to ration, the soldier's mother prepares a Thanksgiving feast:  a pot of cranberries and a basket full of apples sit on the floor; on the red-and-white checkered tablecloth sit cabbage, collards and a large rutabaga.  An orange and a lemon peek out from behind the salt and pepper shakers.  A plump pumpkin brings colour to the scene.

Thanksgiving:  Mother and Son Peeling Potatoes graced the cover of The Saturday Evening Post on November 24, 1945.  Rockwell offered the painting to Richard Hagelberg once it was completed, as he usually did to the models in his works, but Hagelberg declined.  Perhaps it was because Rockwell had added 20 pounds and 20 years to Richard's mother.  The painting found a home in the American Legion Post in Winchendon, Massachusetts.  In the late 1970's, it was transferred to the Norman Rockwell Museum. 

Thanksgiving:  Mother and Son Peeling Potatoes circa 1945 courtesy
http://www.best-norman-rockwell-art.com/norman-rockwell-thanksgiving.html.

Walking to Church

"No man with a conscience can just bat out illustrations.  He's got to put all of his talent, all of his feeling into them." (Judy Goffman, The Great American Illustrators)

Walking to Church features a family of five walking down a street, Bibles in their hands, dressed in their Sunday best.  The businesses, a barbershop, a hair salon and a restaurant, are all closed on this day of rest.  Milk bottles sit on stoops, not yet brought in by the customers.  The steeple pokes up from the businesses, the bell ringing.

Rockwell based the steeple on the one from the North Bennington Church.  The street is based on one in Little Italy in Troy, Vermont which included a restaurant called the Silver Dollar.  Rockwell's inspiration for the painting was a piece by Johannes Vermeer's called View of Houses in Delft.

Rockwell's attention to detail is always evident.  Notice the intricate designs below the parapet of the barbershop.  Take note of the antennas on the rooftops.  A flock of birds draws our eye to the church tower.  "[Without] them, one might not have realized that the family was going to church." (http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2013/american-art-n09048/lot.23.html)  As Rockwell explained:  "No man with a conscience can just bat out illustrations.  He's got to put all of his talent, all of his feeling into them."

Walking to Church, which first appeared in The Saturday Evening Post on April 4, 1953, sold at Sotheby's Auction for $3.2 million in 2013.

http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2013/american-art-n09048/lot.23.html

John Henry Hopkins Jr.'s "We Three Kings"

"We three Kings of Orient are

Bearing gifts we traverse afar

Field and fountain, moor and mountain

Following yonder star."

John Henry Hopkins Jr., the son of pioneer parents from Ireland and Germany, was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  He worked as a journalist while he studied law.  However, when he graduated, he felt called by the Holy Spirit to become a pastor.  He entered the General Theological Seminary of New York.

At the Seminary, Hopkins put his writing skills by founding and editing the Church Journal.  He also put his artistic talent to work, designing stain glass windows.  In 1857, as musical director of the Seminary, Hopkins was asked to write a new carol for the Christmas pageant. Likely with his young nieces and nephews in mind, Hopkins wrote "We Three Kings of Orient Are". He presented it to his nieces and nephews on his Christmas visit to Vermont, where he also saw his father, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of the state.  

Six years passed before We Three Kings was published in "Carols, Hymns and Song.  Later, it became the first fully American carol to be published in England where it appeared in Christmas Carols Old and New. (http://www.hymnary.org/person/Hopkins_JohnHJr)

To listen to the carol, visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8mjRxkMBkE.

http://raeshadrz.blogspot.ca/2010/12/we-three-kings.html