The kindly doctor sits in the wing chair in the nursery, his black bag open by his feet. As the little girl in the polka-dot pinafore looks on with concern, he checks the pulse of her ailing doll.

Once you get past nostalgia for the days when doctors made house calls, odds are you will immediately recognize the hand and storytelling genius of Norman Rockwell.

Norman Rockwell (ENLARGE)
In 'Doctor and Doll' (1942), a little girl look on with concern as the doctor checks her doll's pulse.
Norman Rockwell (ENLARGE)
'Doc Melhorn and the Pearly Gates' (1938) shows Norman Rockwell's usual cast of characters: the grandfatherly doctor, the engaged homemaker-mom and the cute kid.
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REVIEW "Picturing Health: Norman Rockwell and the Art of Illustration" Through June 4. Free. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. weekdays. CDC Global Health Odyssey. 1600 Clifton Rd. at CDC Parkway. 404-639-8236; www.cdc.gov/gcc/exhibit Note: Visitors must show two IDs and submit to a car inspection to get into the CDC campus. Bottom line: A fascinating comparison of the culture of health care, then and now. RELATED LINKS: • Other art exhibits • Blog: ATLarts

You might not realize, however, that this 1942 oil painting served as an advertisement for the Upjohn Company, which displayed reproductions of it in pharmacy windows, doctor's offices, clinics and hospitals.

Companies like Upjohn, Lambert Pharmacal and American Optical Company saw Rockwell as the perfect pitchman for their products. His name alone was like the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval, and his apple-pie vision of America was consonant with the optimistic vision they purveyed.

Each of the 11 Rockwells in this exhibit at Atlanta's Centers for Disease Control tells its own heartwarming story. Executed between 1929 and 1961, all draw from the same cast of characters: the grandfatherly doctor, the engaged homemaker-mom and the cute kid whose most serious problem seems, despite the doctor's presence, to be socks that won't stay up.

And they all convey the paternalistic message: If you eat right, take your vitamins (our brand) and trust your wise physician (and us), all will be right with your world.

Rockwell's vision seems especially antique in the context of this show's location: a handsome modern building on the CDC campus, where scientists marshal the latest technology to battle globe-threatening diseases.

The contemporary illustrations that comprise the second half of the show bring home the cultural changes that have occurred between Rockwell's time and now.

These newer works often accompanied magazine articles on problematic issues, so they aren't as relentlessly positive as advertisements would be. In fact, more prominent, in my mind at least, are the unintended consequences of medical advances.

Ironically, the certainty the Rockwells project is one of the casualties, a victim of the old saw that the more you know, the less you know. Several of the contemporary illustrations deal with a patient's bewilderment and confusion in the face of proliferating choices and conflicting information.

The doctor's godlike persona is another casualty. With so many sources of information and a general climate of skepticism, patients now approach medical care as informed consumers, not supplicants. To add insult to injury, the insurance companies now call the shots.

Mark Ulriksen cleverly expresses this fall from grace in "Dissing Doctors." Evoking Old Master depictions of the expulsion from the Garden of Eden, the image depicts an angel chasing the besieged M.D. from a palm tree-lined pool area.

The contemporary illustrators draw from art's huge grab-bag of styles, but it's safe to say that none have the impact of Rockwell's paintings. Partly because his narrative, compositional and painting skills draw the viewer in, and partly because, despite what we know about his rose-colored glasses, we can't help but wish the wonderful life he depicts were true.