Freedom from Want

What better artist to feature on the Fourth of July than the one most associated with Americana - Norman Rockwell? Some critique Rockwell as more of a pop commercial illustrator than a real artist, but he was a master of designing scenes that tell a story and of showing the emotions of the figures in that story. His Four Freedoms series - Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Worship, Freedom from Fear, and Freedom from Want (here in LEGO by Greg 50) - was painted during World War II, inspired by a speech by President Roosevelt in which he enumerated those four freedoms as essential to all mankind. The original oil painting is at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.