A Current Analysis to the Four Freedoms, Part One

 

Freedom of Speech

The four freedoms by Norman are series of painting that after 50 years they have some relevance because they are based on the peril of the world versus an idealized version of what constitutes the life in the United States.

As I turn older, I see Freedom of Speech from the series of four the most prevalent one because a lot of people in the last 8 years can't dissociate that with freedoms there are consequences. The art of Norman Rockwell comes from an idealization back when reality was more dual in terms of social development and equity to all of the citizens.

I personally love the art of Norman Rockwell because from a commercial and marketing point of view it encompass a sense of nostalgia that transcends time and encompass a sole root in the Americana Pop Culture. From an art analysis there's a polarization in the Rockwell paintings because of the message they give as sucrose but instead we need to look him as a painter that was a byproduct of his time and worked towards the war efforts and reconstruction of the United States towards his art.

Freedom of Speech is one of my favorites, it juxtapose with the today ideal of freedom that we have to speak what we believe but a lot of people forget there are consequences towards the speech we can give. The composition of the painting follows a triangular pyramid order which centers the figure of the man as the main focus for the viewer, the hierarchy is really simple but effective because we as viewers we can see the story and how people are focused at the main character who is exercising his freedom of speech yet we don't see discomfort on any of the other faces but rather a complacent crowd who seems to agree with him.

I am trying to think that today we can found a similar aspect in which being complacent goes with accepting unwanted behavior such as accepting Neo-Nazi's ideologies because they are protected under the constitution, there is no freedom without consequences and that goes beyond the idyllic idea that we live in a perfect country because we don't. The ideas from Norman Rockwell comes from a time where the exchange of information was limited by how far people could interact, a time without the Internet where you could have pen-pals but your sources come from local and regional media to know what was happening around your community and not even in an international grounds.

Is hard to think of a time where people were naïve but it existed, it was a frame of human history that isn't far away from contemporary times, we can think of the concept back in the early 1980's up to the mid 1990's where the last time where communication was centralized and freedom of speech was influenced as far as we could reach.