From an interview with Wayne Thiebaud — "one of America’s greatest painters, and certainly its premier painter of food... still going strong" at 99 years old — about his New Yorker cover this week.
Thanksgiving is coming up — not this week but next week — and it's a very food-based holiday.
The food-based painter paints a roasted turkey. Just the platter of meat. Also some vegetables on the side. But no table surrounded by human beings aglow with thanks. None of that Norman Rockwell scene or any latter-day spoof of such. Just the food. An interesting painterly blue shadow along the right edge of the platter.
Hmm. I don't know. If you look at it long enough maybe deeper meaning comes through. We're told the title of the painting is "Stuffed," but the neck end of the turkey is turned toward the viewer, and it's stitched closed as though the cook had taken the trouble to pack stuffing in that secondary compartment, but it but doesn't bulge out. It's concave.
Thiebaud is invited to compare his turkey to the turkey in the famous Norman Rockwell painting (which is called "Freedom from Want," after one of Franklin Roosevelt's "Four Freedoms"). Thiebaud says:
That’s a marvellous turkey! I don’t know if anyone could compete with that. That’s a beautiful, American, wonderfully felt family get-together. Everyone is right there, including the turkey.Yes, it's even wonderful for the cooked carcass... in the memory's visualization of the look and feel and love of what has been experienced. But the memory of Thanksgiving doesn't have to be stuffed with family happiness. It can be empty and concave, like the neck end of Thiebaud's turkey.
Indeed, that title, "Stuffed," is ambiguous. Stuffed is the feeling that you've had more than enough. All those Thanksgivings, looked back on in memory. Thiebaud has 90+ Thanksgivings in his memory to try to recall the look and feel and love of as as he paints a New Yorker cover that can never escape comparison to the Thanksgiving idealization Norman Rockwell found in his head three-quarters of a century ago.
We're all in the blue shadow of that image.
Or I should say we're all in the blue shadow of our memory of that image? Looking at it now, I'm surprised that it seems so dim and gray. The turkey is a dismal mound, and the other food on the table is celery and a couple of pickles. Yes, there are people, but are they really happy? They look gaga and manic. Disembodied heads.
And I don't believe that frail grandmother could, without strain, hold a 25-pound turkey off to the side at an angle like that. Grandfather is the dark eminence, presiding, but he should move aside so grandma can keep that load in balance. Maybe that's what all those other characters are cackling about. Grandma's pissed. I bet 1 second later she loses her grip and 25-pounds of cooked bird drops on the table and that cackling comes to an abrupt halt.
ADDED: Move up one decade from Rockwell's Thanksgiving, get to the 1950s (where I grew up), and the look and feel and love of Thanksgiving in your memory could be...
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Sometimes a turkey is just a turkey.
Disembodied heads.
Heads on a platter!
It’s this week’s theme, you know.
”I bet 1 second later she loses her grip and 25-pounds of cooked bird drops on the table and that cackling comes to an abrupt halt”...
Interrupting the silence, billy hisses through gritted teeth...”damn you, Trump!”
I remember the George W. Bush "fake" turkey.
Really, that was a story.
The turkey looks weird with the open end and the tiny, brittle-looking corkscrew spine or rib cage. As with your experience, it makes me want to look for deeper meaning, but I don’t find any. Just a weird-looking unappetizing turkey.
While we’re on the subject of weird, in the Rockwell painting, why is no one looking at the turkey? This seems like the moment everyone should be looking at it.
Thiebaud is most known for painting cakes. Cakes are frosted, with decoration, so they really are already paintings of a sort. It's a painting of a painting. Meat is what it is and it's cooked to taste good (and to kill whatever would make you sick). It's a lot harder to paint meat than cake. A lot of artists paint still lifes of fruit. But can you think of any good paintings of meat? It's not easy!!
Here's a Claude Monet painting of meat.
The Monet meat is raw. I'm seeing some paintings of raw meat, but I challenge you to link to a seriously good painting of cooked meat.
It just looks like a bad painting, hard to tell if the smashed in top was intentional or not. I think his memory failed him. As to meat paintings I think of Francis Bacons grisly sides of beef framing the Pope.
Sorry, I missed the prompt to think of cooked rather than raw meat. There were a number of 17th c. still-life paintings with meat but they feel weirdly unpleasant. Perhaps there is something fundamentally un-aesthetic and uncomfortable about meat as a visual subject.
Cripes. Now YOU'RE trying to ruin Thanksgiving. Sheesh.
It was my mother's favorite holiday. She believed in the importance of being aware of our blessings, and being quietly thankful for them. She brought out the best in others. It added to her beauty.
That Rockwell Thanksgiving painting has a certain middle American zaniness, but I thought you were going to talk about the other Rockwell painting "Saying Grace". Now I see that there is no food in it, although it was the Post's 1951 Thanksgiving cover.
Count your blessings, Althouse. You do wonderful things.
“And I don't believe that frail grandmother could, without strain, hold a 25-pound turkey off to the side at an angle like that.”
Grandma was a tough old bird. Midwest tough. Husker tough. Badger tough. Jayhawk tough.
If your impression of Grandma is frail, I have to wonder if you’ve known many farm wives.
Rockwell's paintings were always about the people. In this case, the turkey is not the star. I can remember times when our family got together with cousins at holidays and we all laughed together manically for hours just like in the Rockwell painting. That was then. Today no one even talks to each other. Not out of hate. Just the state of the world- everyone is sooooo busy with their lives. And scattered. We all scattered from Michigan to the corners of the world, turning into rumors and nothing more.
I don't know of any paintings of cooked meats. Really- that was an interesting point. Those two turkeys (and probably a few more turkeys) are it. A few good raw meat paintings. Many still life paintings with fruit.
Also- it's surprisingly hard to photograph food well. It's an art. I know many photographers who don't know how to do that. They can do amazing landscapes, but not food. On the other hand, I know some who specialize is taking food shots. (for magazines, websites, email ads, catalogs, etc). I don't mean an iPhone photo of your dinner at a local restaurant. I mean something that is going to make people get hungry looking at it and want to buy it. (or cook it). Something you'd see on the Monahan's Seafood website.
Badger tough? Wolverine tough? Note the common weaseldom.
The Badgers ruled this year in the Battle of the Weasels.
That Rockwell could be duplicated by a selfie taken by the guy in the bottom right of the picture. If I can scare up some celery and pickles, I might try that next week.
My grandfather died at the Thanksgiving dinner table. Full on head in his plate of turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, squash, and stuffing, but I appear to have more pleasant Thanksgiving memories than you do. It's not a holiday we're obligated to celebrate. You can skip it and go for a long walk and be grateful for what you have everyday.
The painting of the turkey is about as unappetizing as it gets. I could imagine it as the cover for a brochure from PETA. The Norman Rockwell cover was supposed to be about having enough food to eat, but Rockwell's works were always about the people. Seeing all of his Post covers displayed in the order they were published is a window into his changing world. That Thanksgiving cover was only one of many Thanksgiving covers.
The best part about the Rockwell painting is the guy looking into the camera.
I'm surprised the New Yorker didn't try to oh, so subtly, superimpose a hint of Trumps's face in the fallen in cavity covering. I'm sure the topic came up at an editorial meeting and then all the participants would have had the giddy slightly maniacal look of the Rockwell table sitters.
To me it looks like a turkey one would puncture rather than carve.
Like when Griswold did it.
Jeez Ann. How did you ever morph into the Grinch that stole Thanksgiving. Would never have guessed you had that in you.
Althouse = Debbie Downer.
It's funny to see that Rockwell turkey without the giant breast that I assume have been bred into modern turkeys. Not that I'm complaining!
(sorry about grammar in last comment. Is early. Moar coffee.)
David Begley and Kevin hit the nail on the head.
You obviously have never been around a Midwest farm family.
Grandmas are tough cookies.
And you knew enough not to get Grandmas way when she was running the kitchen.
She was a master in organizing everyone to do jobs they could handle from the littlest to the biggest.
Those arms that held that turkey also hauled feed, hay, ran a tractor or whatever needed to be done outside of the holiday.
I love that Grandma. And that family.
Makes me nostalgic for my past Thanksgivings.
My kids hate turkey so we now have beef tenderloin.
Good, but the same.
Let's credit the sublime Mort Drucker as the artist for Mad's SEP cover parody. And sixty years after that cover was published, with a parade of State Department witnesses at the center of the Trump impeachment inquiry, it's interesting to see the question on that parody cover: Our State Department--Do We Really Need It?
https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2017/07/art-post-posts-rockwell-mads-drucker-two-great-american-artists/
How did Rockwell predict the selfie so accurately? And how do you photobomb a painting?
The Rockwell bird is an accurate visual depiction of the way turkey tastes. Bleh. Maybe if you get out the injector, cram it with marinade then deep fry it. Tolerable...
Turkey is largely an impediment to be conquered on the way to the pies...
Your copy of the Rockwell painting is dingy. There are better copies of it if you do an image search.
No paintings of spatchcocked turkeys. They have that hands-up-don't-shoot look.
And I don't believe that frail grandmother could, without strain, hold a 25-pound turkey off to the side at an angle like that. Grandfather is the dark eminence, presiding, but he should move aside so grandma can keep that load in balance.
Ha, my exact reaction. Grandma's arms are painted as if she's maneuvering a dainty cookie tray onto the table. Always bothered me.
If you look at Grandma's arms, the idea should can't handle a 25 lbs. Turkey is silly. Plus Grandma looks to be about 55 not 70.
Thanksgiving is far too late in November this year.
The Wayne Theibold turkey looks like a half deflated Beach all. The Rockwell spread is from the pre-morbid obesity era.
As Madtown says if you do an image search you will find much brighter cheerier versions. The difference is so stark, the Wikipedia editors must be Rockwell haters trying to make him look bad.
As several other commenters have noted it is freakish how much this painting looks like a modern day selfie taken by guy in lower right corner.
Thiebaud's turkey is awful.
"Also- it's surprisingly hard to photograph food well. It's an art. I know many photographers who don't know how to do that...."
And there are so many people on Facebook who think they've got a photograph of their cooked-meat dinner that will make other people envious. It's ludicrous sometimes the piles of amorphous brown that Facebookers think express yumminess.
"That Rockwell could be duplicated by a selfie taken by the guy in the bottom right of the picture. If I can scare up some celery and pickles, I might try that next week."
Yes, the painting is really about that guy, and I don't have a good feeling about him. I'm thinking... write a novel about that man. He is up to no good. Clearly at the end of his rope (or selfie stick).
"Thiebaud's turkey is awful."
I know. When I downloaded the new issue into my iPad to read it yesterday and the cover popped up, I thought, what an ugly New Yorker cover. That's one of the worst I've seen in the last 10 years. This morning, I got the explanation I needed when I saw the interview. It's painted by a famous artist and the man is 99 years old. Okay. Good enough.
There is plenty of food on the table. How about the bowl of fruit, the soup tureen( potatoes), what appears to be cranberry sauce, a bowl of butter, celery and the turkey which would have had the stuffing inside. A traditional Thanksgiving meal.
"As Madtown says if you do an image search you will find much brighter cheerier versions. The difference is so stark, the Wikipedia editors must be Rockwell haters trying to make him look bad."
LOL. There's always room for a new conspiracy theory. They're out to get Rockwell!
Rockwell... Roswell... Put it on your list of conspiracy topics.
"How about the bowl of fruit..."
I believe that's an inedible centerpiece. Fake food -- look at the gilding.
I agree that there are some block like items that are probably food. I thought one looked like flan. Maybe that's the butter you're talking about. I'm sure it's not tofu.
Note the sexual assault going on in the kitchen in the MAD picture. MAD men, indeed, in 1958. Babette the maid looks like she is holding her own, though.
Somewhere Marshall Mcluhan said that color photography has done more for food than eating has. I worked for a company that produced cook books and had a number of Food Stylists on staff. Their job was to prepare the food for the camera in order to make it look yummy. This involved a number of tricks which would make the food inedible but photogenic.
I thought the molded food was aspic.
When I looked at the Monet picture an involuntary “mmm” came out. It’s a nice piece of beef. Ribeye, right?
"Since all of my paintings—almost every single one except for the figure paintings—are done from memory... I try to recall the look and feel and love of what I have experienced."
Judging from what looks like a hollowed-out turkey, he remembers it being attacked by the Bumpuses' dogs.
"Sonsabitches!!! Bumpuses!!!!!"
"All this for a damned turkey"
I'm as cynical as the next guy, but our large family had dozens of loving, hilarious, and Rockwellian Thanksgiving dinners. And, yes, it was no doubt largely due to the effort and sure hand of our matriarch. She's gone but we carry on the traditions in the hope of giving our children the same memories.
Althouse is channeling J.Farmer today. “It's all about to collapse!”
Why would the grandmother be frail? They were tough broads.
The nine adults and two children depicted were photographed in Rockwell's studio and painted into the scene later. The models are (clockwise from Wheaton) Lester Brush, Florence Lindsey, Rockwell's mother Nancy, Jim Martin, Mr. Wheaton, Mary Rockwell, Charles Lindsey, and the Hoisington children. Jim Martin appears in all four paintings in the series.
Frail? That's a silly projection, Professor--Grandma grew up doing hard manual labor all her life and without much in the way of processed nor overly-sugared foods; Grandma wrung her washing and chicken's necks every week, churned butter, and ripped veggies and legumes out of the ground with her own hands. Have you ever pulled peanuts, Professor? Ain't nothin' frail about ol' Granny.
The turkey's likely not 25lbs, anyway.
Wow, Althouse. Your grandma must have been a real wimp. My grandma, a hardy farmer/teacher not that far removed from our pioneer forebears, could have held that platter with the turkey on it with ease, pretty much right up until the end.
I can say I searched and that not many pictures of Thanksgiving or any other feast focus on the meat rather than the people. Of course food magazines have plenty of very attractive pictures. Martha Stewart has a similar picture, advertising something she wants you to buy and see how she does that.
https://www.mic.com/articles/158429/martha-stewart-s-thanksgiving-meal-kit-makes-it-possible-to-cook-a-feast-in-a-tiny-kitchen
But in New York you'd get that scrawny thing basted with significance. Avoid New York is pretty much what the picture says.
I found two photos of paintings to compare with Rockwell - one from the Tres Riche Heures du Duc de Berry of a Christmas feast with some tiny little birds.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8a/Les_Tr%C3%A8s_Riches_Heures_du_duc_de_Berry_Janvier.jpg
The other painting is of the first Thanksgiving in which a women is again at angle holding a turkey on a platter - this time a Pilgrim woman is serving a seated Wampanoag chief.
https://www.voanews.com/usa/all-about-america/what-really-happened-1st-thanksgiving#&gid=1&pid=1
The photo is from the VOA in the Fifties so every item is calculated to tell a story to certain audience at a certain time. Just like the New Yorker cover.
Wayne, it's the High Sierra - not "Sierras".
- Mr. Sheesh
I love Wayne Thiebaud's work, particularly his pastels, where one can see the artist's hand at work.
"Grandma" is probably not that old. With her non-saggy arms and her lack of a turkey neck I'd say she's about 45--OK, 50--years old. Back then women didn't dye their hair so modern mature women look much younger by comparison. If she was alive today she'd probably have auburn coloring and the "short and sassy" hair cut. She married a guy 20 years older than her because it was the depression and sometimes a person has make tough choices to survive. But all in all she's content and loves the love that surrounds her.
#thanksgivingsowhite
I remember moving to San Jose 30 years ago, and I saw a Wayne Thiebaud painting at the airport. Some cows on a 45 degree slope. I thought "What have I gotten myself into?".
Since we’re talking turkey here's John Currin’s Thanksgiving. The artist used his wife as a model for all three generations of women, in a meditation on life, sex, menopause, and death. At the terminus of the circular composition a tired hag stuffs currants into a gaping carcass. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
You didn't even mention that for the first decard or so of her marriage grandma was chopping wood for her stove and pumping her water.
Used to be that grandmas were tough. They had to be. In particular in the heartland. Not out there up east among the self-regarding Yankees that couldn't and still can't leave other people the hell alone.
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