“Spring Flowers”

NORMAN ROCKWELL IS, ABOVE ALL, a master of the character study. When we think of his art, we think first of the way he portrays faces and hands, the skill with which he captures thoughts and emotions in expressions and poses. It should be remarked, then that this charming still life, published in McCall's, is rather unusual in Rockwell's output because it does not include a single human figure. This is not to say, however, that it does not include a human presence.

The shoes, the gardening gloves, the beribboned hat on the potting-shed wall, the way the flowers and branches have been arranged in the basket on the comfortable-looking old chair—all these things tell us something about the woman who inhabits this environment. The tame-seeming bird perched in the doorway gives us another clue to her character.

Technically, then, this is a still life, but in a sense, it is a portrait—a portrait of a woman who stays in touch with nature through the medium of her garden.