It's an age of globalization. People from some cultures take interest in or otherwise get introduced to those of the others. This is exactly my case. I needed to tell the readers of my Russian-language blog (all from the ex-USSR) about Norman Rockwell and his paintings.

I was short of time and mostly skimmed through the book, mostly stopping to read paragraphs pertaining to featured illustrations. They explained to me, rather uninitiated to depths of American XX cent. culture, the true meaning and circumstances of many of his cult paintings. Although as a great artist he made humor and emotions of his paintings universally understandable, precisely the book's comments helped a lot with the contexts, guaranteeing a far larger satisfaction with every picture. Stories of how such and such painting was concieved or how the casting and the actual drawing process unfolded, what reception it got from models, critics and public provided better understandiing and insights into both America's and Rockwell's life.

I am sure my readers would enjoy my retelling of the circumstances of appearing of "The Russian Classroom". And since I'm from Moscow, maybe we'll manage to find actual models, who sat for the artist.

And until I started reading people's reviews here, was I unaware of author's speculations re artist's intimate life. I gleaned tons of valuable information, but these bits went under my radar. Maybe it is because you already know so much about Rockwell, his art and contexts, that those paragraphs marr your perception of the entire work?
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