Don't hesitate to correct the mistakes if there are any :-)
This painting is entitled The Connoisseur.
It was completed in 1962 (that is to say 51 years ago).
In fact, it was used as the cover of The Saturday Evening Post of January 13, 1962.
It was painted by Norman ROCKWELL who is an American artist.
Norman Rockwell was born in 1894 in New York City.
He lived through and painted pictures from an amazing time in history – through the industrial revolution, two world wars, the great depression, the baby boom, the civil rights movement, and more than a dozen presidents. When he was born, there were no airplanes, no cars, and women couldn’t vote. He made 25 cents a day for delivering mail on his bike as a teenager, and his first cover of the Saturday Evening Post earned him $75. Four years ago, one of his paintings sold for over $15 MILLION!
Norman Rockwell is famous for working in Realism
By painting real people in real situations, Rockwell created an everlasting record of what life was like in the early half of the 20th century.
The scene takes place in a museum.
We can see a man who is looking at a painting.
This man is wearing a suit and is holding a hat, an umbrella and a program.
The painting he is looking at seems to be a Jackson Pollock painting.
He is standing quite close to the painting, in fact to close to it to be able to appreciate it properly as it is very big.
Rockwell's image is executed in a realist style, but shows an Abstract Expressionist painting in great detail.
This painting might be a commentary on the value of Abstract Expressionism or simply an illustration of a trend in art.
It is an interesting piece of work as it really tells us a story. What’s more, we are in exactly the same posture as the man : we are just like him looking at a painting. We are at the same time inside and outside the painting.
Hesitated a little bit on "appreciate", sorry about that. Also, the sentence should be: "in fact *too* close to it to be able to appreciate it properly as it is very big."
:)