The Freedom of Worship

Essay: The Freedom of Worship

Explain how our world would be if everyone owned the freedom from Worship. You can link it to the Roosevelt speech as well as the historical aspect of it. Create a relationship with the painter and your perspective of it: think worldwide and be specific on the changes (mentality, vision, behavior, exchange, communication, space…)

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      January 6th, 1941, the president of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt pronounced his speech about the state of the union. He expressed four types of Freedoms: The Freedom of speech; Freedom of worship, Freedom of will, and Freedom from fear. It was spring 1943, during the middle of the war, that the American illustrator Norman Rockwell, was inspired by this particularly speech and realized the poster of the «Four freedoms ", has gotten front page of the magazine "The Saturday Evening". This poster was published in many other occasions, and allowed also to raise money for multiple war efforts.  

      Let us focus on the Freedom of worship, the 2nd picture of the group painted by Norman Rockwell.

During his speech, Franklin D. Roosevelt said: “The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way — everywhere in the world.” He also talked about the right to worship the god who we want to adore, as the second freedom. Freedom of worship indicates the right for people to choose and to practice or not their own religion, and this right must be respected.

  On Norman Rockwell's paint, we can observe people in their time of prayer. They are all attending different religions, their age differs as well as their origins. In the foreground, in the right edge of the paint, a Jewish man is recognizable with a covered head; he is wearing a book of prayers between his hands. In front of him, we distinguish clearly two women, A Protestant woman, hair held in a strict bun, and another catholic woman, squeezing her rosary for a prayer to the Virgin Mary.  Behind them, we can observe two men: one of them is joining his hands to fulfil a prayer, and the other one is meditating. The paint seems to go join other partially visible faces by taking a northern route, of which a man of colour, and a very young woman. We can imagine that there are some more others behind them, a multitude.

Faces are directed to the same direction outside the painting and lit up by a light coming from the same point.

The pictural option, by the sweetness of the chosen colours, the very neutral tones, the ascending movement of the paint and the convergence of lines and regards, gives an impression of peace and unity. Maybe this yellow and very clear light, which lights up each of the faces, wants to reinforce the message of freedom.

   This work aims to reflect diversity, but also tries to five out respect for the religions and the faiths of each person.

These people seem quite religious and very concentrated on their prayers. Each and anyone of them, is praying their own religion according to their faith and their practices, but with the same meditation and it’s same strength. In a way, because of the attitude they express, we could say that they are united. Their prayers and their thoughts gather them in a common purpose.

The characters of the painting are not in confrontation. They are free in their differences but are close in their intention. Communities have their specificities, but they pray in harmony. The purpose of their prayers, the attention which they carry there, and what everyone seems to feel in this moment towards God exceed what could bring them into conflict. Each one is free to believe or not to believe, to ask and to practise the faith as he or she wants it, and according to his or her religious membership, without judgment or intolerance, and in way without war.

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