To all of those who think a painting should not have to be explained...

[LAS14]

... on the one hand, I agree with you. The response to a painting is very individual, and should be.

But we at DU are interested in Barack and Michelle Obama as people. I think it's very interesting and valuable to try to understand why they liked these artists and chose them for their portraits. Here are two DU posts that I found helpful in getting around my initial less than excited response.

Skinner's post of several other portraits by each of the artists.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100210219889

The video of the whole ceremony, where you can hear both Obamas' remarks as well as those of each of the artists.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100210219992#post1

Aren't the Obama's worth some empathetic energy????

[samnsara]

1. I loved the paintings.. i think they perfectly captured the inner as well as the outer beauty...

...it was so good to see both of them again!

[unblock]

2. i don't agree with the notion at all.

art is certainly more readily accessible if it doesn't require explanation or context, but that hardly means *all* art or all "good" art must be easily understood without explanation.

all forms of art build upon the history of art and various influences on the artist, and understanding that context can enhance an understanding of their work.

try to understand some modern art or performance art without understanding history or context.
many times an explanation helps, sometimes it's even necessary. that's fine.

i've seen large installations of thousands of little something or others. turns out these exactly a very particular number of those little somethings, and that exact number is important, related to the entire point of the installation. should i count the thousands of items and try to draw on my understanding of history to figure out the relevance of that particular number?

no, an explanation helps, such as, that's the exact number of fatalities in the particular incident the artist is memorializing.

should i have known that picasso's "guernica" refers to a nazi bombing of a town by that name in the basque area of spain?



as a more pop reference, paul mccartney has said that "got to get you into my life" is actually about marijuana.
now i really appreciate the doubt entendre in the song as it works both about marijuana and a (human) love interest.

[alarimer]

3. Even the Gilbert Stuart painting of Washington was not that good.

Something was wrong with his mouth. But Stuart kept making copies of that same painting for years. It's the most famous one of him, and yet it is not a good likeness.

And I think a lot of us assume presidential portraits are all done in the same, sort of old-fashioned way. Clinton's official portrait has a Monica Lewinsky reference. I prefer the Chuck Close portrait myself.

https://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/bill-clinton-national-portrait-gallery-lewinsky-scandal-115645

So, yeah, there is a lot to argue about with art, and official portraits may not even be the best art.

[LAS14]

6. I heard that Washington's mouth looks that way because he had wooden false teeth. Dunno if true. n

[alarimer]

7. I don't think he had wooden teeth, but I think the dentures were ill-fitting

Maybe that's why the painting is a little off.

[zipplewrath]

4. I get it

Well, I think I get it. But it seems to me that the art is to speak to people who know and admire the Obama's, not necessarily to speak to future generations that may not have known them.

[alarimer]

9. I think that "official" portraits of presidents need to be good likenesses first and foremost.

And to stick to realism. Because it is, in effect, a historical document. And it should be far less about the artist and their methods and quirks and more about the subject. I haven't spent a lot of time looking at the Obama portrait, except to say that he should have been in the Oval Office and not in some unidentifiable garden. There is no sense that this is actually the President. Michelle's is a different story. I think there's more leeway there for the artist to express themselves.

I linked to a story above about Clinton's official portrait. There, the artist put a reference (in the form of a shadow) to the infamous blue dress, which I think was kind of a lousy thing to do.

[eleny]

5. If the Obama's like these two artists and these renderings...

... then that gives me some insight into the POTUS and FLOTUS that I didn't have before. So I'm thinking about that today.

I like these paintings.

[LanternWaste]

8. The last "art" discussion on DU I was involved in concerned the fantasy/sci-fi hack, Boris.

The last "art" discussion on DU I was involved in concerned the fantasy/sci-fi hack, Boris Vallejo.

I realized then that "artistic merit" means little of either to many, many people.

[TexasProgresive]

10. I never want to know what a painter, song writer, poet or author has to say about their work

They made their statement in the work. What it means to me is what it means to me and not necessarily what the creator intended. I like the portraits of the Obamas. I'm not going to say what they meant to me.

[Iggo]

11. Yup.

I remember (or I think I remember) when they were asking Ray Manzarek about the movie The Doors, and he basically said: You want to know about The Doors? Listen to the records. Everything you need to know about The Doors is on those records.