Freedom from Want is a painting by Norman Rockwell and is one of his series of four paintings called the Four Freedoms. Rockwell was inspired to make these paintings since he heard the Four Freedoms Speech of American President Franklin D. Roosevelt of January 6, 1941.
Background
This painting was made public in The Saturday Evening Post of March 6, 1943, along with an essay of Carlos Bulosan. The other paintings of the Four Freedoms series are Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Worship and Freedom from Fear, and were shown in other editions of the paper.
The painting shows a classical American family at Thanksgiving when a turkey is served during a meal. He took Vermont neighbors as models for his series.
Rockwell wanted to portray a family within a theme of continuity, virtue, homeliness and abundance without extravagance, as confirmed by water as the modest beverage choice. Outside the United States though, the images was explained as an expression of American overabundance.
There have been made many parodies of the painting. New York painter Frank Moore (1953-2002) made a painting in 1994[1] with Americans of different human race with the title Freedom to Share, whilst the turkey plate is full with medicines. Of Moore's painting have been made parodies as well.
Walt Disney has made a well known parody[2] with Mickey and Minnie Mouse and several other Disney figures at the table. Furthermore the image has been used for many advertising goals, political campaigns and picture postcards.
The paintings toured through the United States with the motto Buy War Bonds. All together 1.2 million Americans saw the paintings and 132 million dollar was collected to be used in World War II.[3]
The painting can be found in the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.
References
- Parts of this article are derived from the article on English Wikipedia
