[Barrett Beatrice Jackson is a political scientist and legal historian, as well as a Fellow at the Behavioral International Economics Development Society (BIED). Her work brings together academic scholarship, public policy and law, and genealogy and family history, as this wonderful Guest Post illustrates!]
Norman
Rockwell was always a name thrown around in our family. The essence of
Americana, though I never knew quite why. After my grandfather died, framed
Saturday Evening Post covers started showing up, hung in linear fashion,
clearly old and faded, around our house. I always knew my grandfather was
somewhat “quirky” – he is the reason why I now have hundreds of books dated
back to the early 19th century on U.S. Presidents found at random
garage sales he’d find over the years.
The story behind the Normal
Rockwell’s, however, is a bit more complex and one which inspires a
historiographic resolution that it is the “outliers” – those that go against
the contemporary stereotypes and who may not be in the history books or regarded
as the greatest thinker of their time but nonetheless are central in shaping our
collective history. There was, and continues to be, a basic goodness of soul
that deafens the noise of the world. We were taught to “Always Live In View of
Eternity” – the family mantra being “ALIVE”. Showing up at the insular
Methodist church for a couple hours every week wasn’t enough.
Let me provide some context. Before
desegregation was no longer thought of as un-Godly, and World War II veterans
were reaching middle age, Glenn Brown practiced as an OBGYN in middle Florida.
(I’ve been told that after the war, he resolved to bring as much life into the world
to atone for those he took away in Japan.) He was cultured and worldly, despite
having grown up in Selma, Alabama, during Jim Crowe. He held himself to a
higher standard—a believer in Kantian-like imperatives that transcend societal
definitions of right versus wrong. He instilled in us all the conviction that
there is more to life than the “rat race”, as he put it. Thus, he would risk
his safety (and reputation) to travel deep within the black neighborhoods of
rural Florida swampland to provide them free obstetrical care.
Enter Robert Butler. Also defying
segregation laws, Butler was a penniless black artist who would try to sell his
works at the same spot along the same rural highway in Okeechobee, Florida, every
day. Inevitably, he and Dr. Brown would meet and, more surprisingly, become
good friends over the years. Butler painted what he knew: the everglades, and
was a master of water-colored landscapes in a signature style that exuded a
unique ability to “read the land”.
Of course, supporting a family on a
love of painting meant a life of barely scraping by. So by the late 1960s, he
had to set out on the road to try to sell his paintings from his car. He later
told the St. Petersburg Times, “I was swimming in this fantastic psychological
soup at the time; I came from this poor background and yet this door was
opening wide for me, to this universe that could be explored forever. I wanted
to paint as much as I could and never looked back.”
From such different backgrounds, the
two men shared this passion of finding profound meaning in the everyday
mundane. Dr. Brown found inspiration in this man who “never looked back” as he
himself lived in deep-seated guilt over those he killed during WWII and for a
country that still vilified racial parity. What did he fight for? How could he
atone? In Butler’s world, my grandfather recognized his naivete in making life
a celebration of colors, a purity of soul unmarred by the realities of war.
Thus Dr. Brown began purchasing
Butler’s paintings for his office and introduced him to other doctors in the
city. Butler would go on to be a father to nine children, most of whom Dr.
Brown delivered. Payment was in the form of a new painting. It was an
unconventional arrangement but neither individual cared much for fitting any
molds. In this way, everything that seemed at odds – race, class, education, et
al – somehow strengthened their friendship.
My grandfather may have subconsciously
been jealous of Butler’s natural joie de vivre but that is exactly why he
surrounded himself, working in an extremely sterile hospital environment, with
bright paintings that served as inspirational reminders—windows to the
outside—of there being meaning in his being a doctor in such a socially
backward and hypocritical area of the country. I’d like to think that Butler
recognized this universal thirst of the soul and that is why his paintings were
born out of such purpose and effortlessly bright natural beauty.
By the 1990’s, Robert Butler had
become a household name in “wild Florida” and proved to be that
one-in-a-million prodigy who had officially made it. He became a symbol of a
group of black artists called “The Florida Highwaymen,” who saw and painted the
world regardless of societal boundaries. In 2004 he was inducted into the Florida
Artists Hall of Fame. He was sought after by all sorts of collectors, hunters,
and outdoor enthusiasts. After his death, our family had to promise his
children that all the now extremely expensive paintings he had made for my
grandfather would not be sold. So they hang amongst the homes of the children
and grandchildren.
Now you may be
wondering how Norman Rockwell fits into this story. The Rockwell originals were
not just haphazardly found by my grandfather; rather, each one was sought after
and selected based on the dates of publication of each Saturday Evening Post.
Not necessarily famous dates in history but ones from family birthdays,
marriages, personal milestones. Nostalgia personified. A deeply personal and
private kind that retains symbolism beyond that amorphous concept of
“Americana” and the well-known family at Thanksgiving dinner.
Not unlike
Butler’s paintings, they—along with their subjects and dates published—are quintessential
reminders of life’s small miracles amidst the ordinary. And perhaps that multi-layer
of interpretation is one factor of Rockwell’s genius. The last painting Butler
personalized for my grandfather embodied all of this. One of Dr. Brown’s
favorites of Rockwell’s was his cover depicting a doctor holding an
old-fashioned stethoscope to a young girl’s heart. He is kneeling down to her
level, looking at her in a way that suggests he is mentally picturing all the
things this girl was to grow up to be and do. As a sort of parting gift once
his career reached new heights, Butler painted this Rockwell work, even copying
the Rockwell signature, with his own “R. Butler” one to make it unique.
It remained in
my grandfather’s offices throughout the years until he passed it down to my
mother, his only child who pursued a career in medicine. As a woman. In the
early 1970s. In Alabama. It then hung in her office until she retired last
year. Whether she was an assistant professor or chief of staff, the painting
was always there gaining new meaning as she fought to be taken as seriously as
the male doctors. I do not know exactly how she sees herself in the painting
–whether as the timid patient or the all-in devoted physician who encapsulates
an unselfish Hippocratic Oath, despite administrative and political
encumbrances in today’s current healthcare system. Probably a bit of both.
How then do we narrow in upon what has
been, and is, utilitarian in American society? Is it about straining to appeal
to everyone? Reach the most people for glory rooted in selfishness? Even
strictly applying J.S. Mill to social movements and the backlash from pandemics
and ensanguine public policies falls short outside of Democratic Theory 101.
On the contrary, it is about honesty:
about past decisions and regrets, about recognizing reality is difficult and
being self-aware and emotionally mature enough not to dwell but to “keep
painting” for the future, so to speak. It is about accepting that
self-forgiveness is a lifelong pursuit.
Allow me to put these rather personal
sentiments into a broader context. Sometimes we prefer to romanticize history
along the lines of “we are fighting in the name of freedom” and do not venture
further to openly discuss the meaning of “freedom”. The backlash of world war
and the new global dichotomy of democratic versus communist superpowers
resulted in the 1950’s a decade of re-branding normality, the “traditional
nuclear family”, and selling a new type of American Dream: peace through idealized
stability.
At the same time, just as the Harlem
Renaissance signified a growing grassroots resistance to accept that status
quo, others rebelled courageously with their own art, providing a bond that
reached across classes and regions. Able to bring a disillusioned white doctor
from Selma, AL, to be moved by such sorrowful beauty in the middle of the
Florida Everglades as a reason for hope and purpose to heal such deeply
engrained wounds.
For more on Butler: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Butler_(artist)
And
his works: https://www.floridahighwaymenpaintings.com/highwaymen/robert-butler/
https://www.invaluable.com/artist/butler-robert-1943-vhquwn7hpz/sold-at-auction-prices/
[Memorial
Day series starts Monday,
Ben
PS. What
do you think? Guest Posts you’d like to contribute?]
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