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Norman Rockwell painted this image of a sailor relaxing in a hammock, sometime during his long career as a popular artist in the United States. Rockwell's work appeared most famously in the widely circulated Saturday Evening Post magazine. These idealized images of small-town American life helped to define middle-class values for a broad audience. During the two world wars, Rockwell lent his talents to the war effort, producing posters and magazine covers that promoted patriotism and sacrifice. This painting is an example of that, showing a sailor relaxing with his dog in a hammock. It romanticizes military service as an expression of the American idyll. To better understand this artwork, we could consult publications such as the Saturday Evening Post, as well as biographical and critical studies of Rockwell's art. Art is always an expression of particular social and institutional contexts.