English

Norman Rockwell
Fruit of the Vine, c. 1926
Illustration for an advertisement for Sun Maid Raisins (1926)
Oil on canvas

[NARRATOR] The golden light from the window casts a holy glow upon this domestic scene. Rockwell painted this canvas around 1930 as an advertisement for Sun-Maid Raisins.

Seventeenth-century painters like Rembrandt and Vermeer had a profound impact on Rockwell. Vermeer was a “Genre” painter. This style depicted scenes of everyday life.

[KNUTSON] Rockwell is using his knowledge of 17th century Dutch genre painting, and combining it with contemporary advertising … techniques that used … religious symbolism frequently to give the products they were advertising an aura of something sacred. And Rockwell really does it very well here, and makes a beautiful image.