"The Runaway" Introduction

When thinking of the 1950's, many Americans think of pleasant, suburban families walking down tree-lined streets, however some Americans were disgruntled with this seemingly carefree lifestyle. The famed painter, Norman Rockwell, was not one of these individuals and he expressed his views of idealism through his popular work,"The Runaway." This 1950's counterculture, fighting idealists like Rockwell, strove to make America realise how things are and not how things were. Rockwell's,"The Runaway," overlooks the fundamental rift that was rising in America throughout the 1950's- an emerging counterculture that was not concerned with how things were in America, but how things are now.