Re: Alice Neel
Posted: Mon Mar 18, 2024 4:03 pm
Great topic, Huck.
I admit that Bush’s pretense at being a painter kind of irritates me. But then, so do the self-identified painters Britney Spears, Sylvester Stallone, Hunter Biden, and Macaulay Culkin.
To identify as an artist in the visual arts, all one has to do is announce to the world that you are now, indeed a painter. It helps if you say that you’ve always wanted to paint, but you just didn’t have the time, and that now (by God!) you are free to pursue your passion and be true to your inner, creative self.
I find it amusing how the field of the visual arts seems to present such delightful opportunities for exploitation. Any affable celebrity past their prime, or anyone’s bored, obnoxious, retired uncle can watch a Bob Ross video, take private watercolor lessons, and call themselves a painter. When they do this, people will usually just shrug and take them at their word. This is because, for the most part, the general public neither cares about art, nor knows what to look for when they’re looking at art. If it’s true that anyone can be an artist, it’s even more so that every one of us is a brilliant and informed art critic. After all, it’s just painting, right? My five-year-old could do it!
But back to the topic. What is it about Bush’s painting that needles me the most? It’s not his lack of technical skill, nor his deficits in composition. It’s that he seems to be looking for post-presidency redemption. His trumped-up neocon war in the Near East helped to generate the cluster folk that we have in the region today. Now Bush paints former soldiers, the people he was responsible for maiming when he sent them into war. His limned veterans are presented as smiling, placid, recovered faces. I dunno, maybe I think a bombed out Iraqi village would be more appropriate. If I were in his place, and trying to portray the aftermath of war, I’d go for a little more Edvard Munch or Kathe Kollwitz.
I admit that Bush’s pretense at being a painter kind of irritates me. But then, so do the self-identified painters Britney Spears, Sylvester Stallone, Hunter Biden, and Macaulay Culkin.
To identify as an artist in the visual arts, all one has to do is announce to the world that you are now, indeed a painter. It helps if you say that you’ve always wanted to paint, but you just didn’t have the time, and that now (by God!) you are free to pursue your passion and be true to your inner, creative self.
I find it amusing how the field of the visual arts seems to present such delightful opportunities for exploitation. Any affable celebrity past their prime, or anyone’s bored, obnoxious, retired uncle can watch a Bob Ross video, take private watercolor lessons, and call themselves a painter. When they do this, people will usually just shrug and take them at their word. This is because, for the most part, the general public neither cares about art, nor knows what to look for when they’re looking at art. If it’s true that anyone can be an artist, it’s even more so that every one of us is a brilliant and informed art critic. After all, it’s just painting, right? My five-year-old could do it!
But back to the topic. What is it about Bush’s painting that needles me the most? It’s not his lack of technical skill, nor his deficits in composition. It’s that he seems to be looking for post-presidency redemption. His trumped-up neocon war in the Near East helped to generate the cluster folk that we have in the region today. Now Bush paints former soldiers, the people he was responsible for maiming when he sent them into war. His limned veterans are presented as smiling, placid, recovered faces. I dunno, maybe I think a bombed out Iraqi village would be more appropriate. If I were in his place, and trying to portray the aftermath of war, I’d go for a little more Edvard Munch or Kathe Kollwitz.