This exchange with Paul Johnson, author of Modern Times, was posted yesterday on National Review Online’s “The Corner.” (Several writers, myself included, were recently invited to supply questions for Johnson to be asked on a PBS show called Uncommon Knowledge. This is from the transcript–the show hasn’t aired yet.)
Q. Terry Teachout asks–
A. I know Terry Teachout. He’s a wonderful writer, especially on music.
Q. Terry would like to know if Paul Johnson has a favorite painting by Norman Rockwell.
A (after a long silence while he thinks). The one of the barbershop. All of his paintings are interesting and good and a lot of them are funny. But that is one which clearly has the right to be called a considerable work of work. The actual structure of the painting is marvelous.
The painting in question, by the way, is “Shuffleton’s Barber Shop,” and I agree.