I don’t think it’s any good, regardless of the dress consideration, and neither is the one of Hillary (her head looks like it’s offset just a little to the right? Hmm, maybe that was intentional too). It’s clear the painter believes himself incredibly clever but I for one would love to know what we’d find if we went poking around in his personal background. Sometimes it’s them that hollers loudest, y’know…
Even if I thought it were an excellent piece of art otherwise, I’d want it removed. His “revelation” is petty, tacky, and beneath the dignity of the office.
I know some people believe Clinton himself “disgraced” the office, but that doesn’t seem to be the issue here so I’m not getting into it. Maybe someone will start a thread about him, JFK, LBJ, and any others we know in retrospect enjoyed their extracurriculars while in office. But regarding just this painting? It needs to go, IMHO.
I was thinking it was Hal Holbrook, but you may be right. Seriously, that guy paints Presidential Portraits!? (…and Marisa Tomei ought to beat him with a bat.)
“A man’s got to know his limitations…”
When a joke is so subtle that NO ONE would get it without the joker saying “Look at the joke I made!” its gone a bit beyond subtle and sneaking something by the censors.
Maybe this artist was decent once (I actually like the Tomei painting) but you couldn’t tell from this example on any level, including the humor one.
If you are going to have to explain the joke to everyone, literally in the old fashioned sense of the word, then he at least could have been more out there and used some blue dress threads mixed into his pigment as a very artsy joke, the medium is the message (and there is some art term for the material used in a work having symbolic value). Maybe a stain on the rug being painted out of that pigment as a metaphor for a stain on his presidency? This though? An ill-formed shadow? At most boring and in truth a bit sophomoric and boring.
I suspect that will be the last presidential commission this guy ever sees. Seems like a pretty childish and egotistical thing to do. “Look what I did! I snuck in a Lewinsky reference! I’m so fucking clever! Haw haw!”
If I was Clinton I’d buy it back, hire a restorer to remove the shadow, and donate it back.
No, it has nothing to do with a government coverup. It’s just removing a childish prank from a work of art. Since the work isn’t that good in the first place, if I was Clinton I might buy it back and burn it (in an environmentally sound way, of course).
Not a fan. A - it doesn’t look all that much like Bill (the Ted Koppel reference is spot on); B - it is far too casual for an official Presidential portrait; C - it is the epitome of disrespectful to the office of President to paint in a belittling pop culture reference to Bill’s wandering eye. There have been plenty of Presidents with wandering eyes in the past, but their official portraits are respectful of the office, not containing a snickering reference to their failings. (JFK f’rinstance).
The artist may not like Clinton, or may see him as the butt of the joke, but the office should be respected. Ditch the picture and get a new one.
