At the outset of his career, Norman Rockwell was not the most likely candidate for long-term celebrity; he was just one of many skillful illustrators working within the conventions of the day. But there was something tenacious about his vision, and something uncanny about his access to the wellsprings of public taste. Although technically he was an academic painter, he had the eye of a photographer and, as he became a mature artist, he used this eye to give us a picture of America that was familiar-astonishingly so-and at the same time unique.
It seems familiar because it was everyone's...