Freedom from Want is the third of the Four Freedoms series of four oil paintings by American artist Norman Rockwell (1894–1978, pictured in his twenties). The works were inspired by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1941 State of the Union Address, known as Four Freedoms. Until then, freedom from want was not a commonly understood or accepted universal freedom. The painting was published in the March 6, 1943, issue of The Saturday Evening Post. It depicts a group of people gathered around a dinner table for a holiday meal, all of whom were friends and family of Rockwell; they were photographed individually and painted into the scene. The painting has become an iconic representation of the Thanksgiving holiday and family holiday gatherings in general and has had a wide array of adaptations, parodies, and other uses. Popular then and now in the U.S., it caused resentment in Europe where the masses were enduring wartime hardship. Artistically, the work is highly regarded as an example of mastery of the challenges of white-on-white painting and as one of Rockwell's most famous works.
Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_from_Want_(painting)
_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:
1703:
The Great Storm of 1703, one of the severest storms to strike southern Great Britain, destroyed the first Eddystone Lighthouse off Plymouth, England. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddystone_Lighthouse
1895:
Swedish chemist and industrialist Alfred Nobel signed his last will and testament, setting aside the bulk of his estate to establish the Nobel Prize after his death. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Nobel
1926:
Restoration of Colonial Williamsburg (pictured), a recreation of a Colonial American city in the Historic Triangle on the Virginia Peninsula, US, began. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonial_Williamsburg
1978:
San Francisco mayor George Moscone and openly gay supervisor Harvey Milk were assassinated by supervisor Dan White. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscone%E2%80%93Milk_assassinations
1999:
The Labour Party defeated the governing National Party in the New Zealand general election, making Labour's Helen Clark the first woman to win the office of Prime Minister at an election. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Clark
_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:
ace: (UK, slang) Excellent. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ace
___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:
Today we give our thanks, most of all, for the ideals of honor and faith we inherit from our forefathers — for the decency of purpose, steadfastness of resolve and strength of will, for the courage and the humility, which they possessed and which we must seek every day to emulate. As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words but to live by them. Let us therefore proclaim our gratitude to Providence for manifold blessings — let us be humbly thankful for inherited ideals — and let us resolve to share those blessings and those ideals with our fellow human beings throughout the world. --John F. Kennedy https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy