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Jon McNaughton, the thuddingly propagandistic right-wing crackpot artist, offers his latest work -- an exultation of Trump. You can buy a reproduction for the low, low price of $75. "When I decided to paint this picture, I wondered if this was taking it too far. But, sometimes you have to speak forcefully, like the brushstrokes of my painting."
The whole point of a McNaughton work is to take it too far. As for his brushstrokes: Is he kidding? Compared to the brush handling we see in (say) a Van Gogh or even a Franz Hals, McNaughton's brushwork is tame.
In previous rants, I've maintained that art is not what but how, and that the least important aspect of any painting is the subject matter. Not long ago, I referenced David's portrait of Napoleon in his study, which you can see "in the paint" at the National Gallery in DC.
If you are not an artist, your first thought will probably be: "Ah. Napoleon!"I've tried to be fair in applying the principle of "Art is not what but how." I don't want anyone to say that my judgment was colored by my politics.
My first thought (back in 1986, during my first trip to DC) was quite different: "Ah. David!"
I see the artist. You see the emperor. I wish to hell I could make you see through my eyes, but you never will. Frankly, I've given up on trying to improve the vision of "word people" like you.
Back in 2012, I looked at a portrayal of Obama-as-Jesus by Michael D'Antuono, the former A.D. for an ad agency. My focus was not on the inanity of his message but on the artist's skill, very little of which was on display. (Although most of the work is poorly done, the lettering is crisply executed, and those stars must have been a bitch to do.)
What, then, shall I say of McNaughton?
Let's be honest: The guy may be a right-wing crank, but he's much, much better than someone like D'Antuono. I appreciate McNaughton's muted colors and his realistic rendering of clothing. His handling of faces is very good; I'm particularly impressed by the biker and the woman next to him.
The dog is well-handled, although I'm puzzled by the forelegs, which seem to be spaced too distantly. Is the right foreleg actually part of a second dog, whose head is off-canvas?
Trump's position is stiff and unnatural, but he's kind of that way in real life. Hate to say it, but his hands are too big. They're not just too big for Trump: They're too big for anyone. The thumb on Trump's left hand doesn't make anatomical sense.
Contrast draws the eye. I don't like the fact that the darkest darks are to be found in the Marine standing at the center and in the head of the man in the wheelchair. Shouldn't the focus be on Trump and the family in front? Shouldn't they have the sharpest darks and highlights? (Perhaps this problem lies with the reproduction.)
Also, the white of the White House is far too bright, and the shadows in the windows are far too black. The high contrast destroys the illusion of depth: It looks as though the Marine is wearing a very strange hat. In fact, the building seems to be the nearest thing in the picture!
I disagree with the decision to put all the color on the left side of the painting; everything on the right is grey and semi-black.
The foliage is not particularly well-handled. It's not really bad, but it's the kind of work one might expect from a student. If McNaughton wants to imbue his landscapes with more character, I would advise him to study the work of Innes, or maybe the painters of the Hudson Valley school.
I think it fair to point out that this is not the way things look when you're on the south side of the White House. Actually, if you stand that distance away from the building, you are no longer on the White House grounds: You are out on the Mall, and the building is partially obscured by a large and imposing iron fence, which is constantly patrolled by Secret Service agents.
It's clear that the artist worked from photo ref. Not a problem: We all do it. McNaughton has done a pretty good job of keeping the lighting consistent, which is one of the big technical hurdles of combining multiple pieces of photo ref to make one work. That said, I'm a little bothered by the way some faces reflect backlighting on the shaded sides of their faces, as if they were photographed in the studio.
The diffused shadows of the kneeling man in the foreground center, and his little girl, do not match the shadows elsewhere. The shadows cast by the sprout and the spade do not match the shadow cast by Trump (or by anyone else). How many suns were out that day?
Any artist using multiple pieces of photo ref faces another great technical problem: Keeping the perspective consistent. Here, McNaughton has failed, and failed bigly. Look at the perspective indicated by the park bench and the wheelchair. Now look at where the horizon line is located. Doesn't match up, does it? One gets the impression that the White House is located atop a high hill -- which it isn't.
The wheels of the wheelchair do not match each other in terms of the vertical axis. The artist neglected to include some of Sheriff Clarke's medals.
All told, I would say that this is far from McNaughton's best work. Nevertheless, he is a gifted painter -- not a great one, but good. I wish I could point to a liberal artist who does better work in the realist tradition. Are there any decent realist painters on the left?
8 comments:
In the instant before I scrolled from the picture to your text, I had a gestalt burst. When I was a child, my dentist's office had issues of Highlights Magazine in the waiting room. One of its features (on the back cover) had What's Wrong (with this picture)? A kid might look at this picture and think the doody that fell out of the man's pants leg looks like a snake. I also assumed it was a parody and homage, and brilliant, done in the obvious style of the great Mad illustrators Bill Elder and Norman Mingo. Then I read your text.
The bench 'proves' (a term I think Escher used) the work is dreck. The bench appears to be some 8-10 feet behind the water bearer (nice trickster work with the meniscus) and in good scale until we see the people closest to it, and then the bench seat is much too low. Most of the background people are much too tall for being that far in the background; that effect only happens with a film or video camera using a long telephoto lens. Or (to give to McNaughton your artist-as-major-character framing) they are standing on risers so they can watch McNaughton rendering them.
Doesn't it remind you of those and other great Mad Magazine illustrators? You probably know that one of the Mad founders was partnered with Hugh Hefner, planning a humor magazine called "Trump" that never panned out.
Amelie, Great Call on Mad Magazine!
This painter has all of that earnest idiocy I haven't seen in decades. Except of course for Thomas Kinkade, Painter of Light, who is worse, but minus overt political content.
Amelie, I thought I had squeezed all the juice out of this one but...you're right! The bench is simply too small when compared to the people standing behind it.
See, this kind of mistake happens when you work from photos. The park bench came from one photo while the figures behind it came from others. I imagine that the artist assembled everything in Photoshop and then went prematurely to paint.
I haven't found a bench quite like it online although a few are similar. Perhaps the artist snapped a photo of an actual bench in a park near where he lives.
But I still wouldn't call this dreck. A large-scale image with many figures is no easy thing to do. And the artist really does know how to render fabric -- for example, I really like the dusty brown highlights in the kneeling man's blue jeans. And the subtle coolness in the shadow areas (do I detect a French ultramarine?) is very well-judged. This is an artist who knows how to paint clothing and faces, even if he does need to learn a few things about landscape and atmospheric distance.
Politically, of course, his head is lodged WAY up his ass. But that's a separate matter.
Joseph says, "But I still wouldn't call this dreck." That's like barely twisting Mark Twain and saying: "McNaughton's paintings are actually better than they look." Maybe I'm irrevocably biased from the many examples of hyperrealism I've looked at in art galleries, where content is irrelevant and meaning can only focus on the artist. I recall (because I'll never forget) a painting called "Lawdy, Lawdy", of a large, open gift box, the ribbon that wrapped it, the tissue paper lifted but not parted, the pearl necklace beneath the tissue paper. I was close enough to try to grasp the creased peaks of the tissue paper, and I wanted to do that. The work was indistinguishable from a photograph, a sculpture, a painting, and a tangible, present object. I was viewing a four-dimensional work.
The woman in front looks as though she's about to pour that pitcher into the man's collar. Also, I hate to see snakes killed, as they are beneficial in the environment. Or is that poor Melania he's symbolically stepping on?
Every time I look at the White House on a hill, it makes me think of "Edward Scissorhands". They filmed it about ten miles from where I grew up north of Tampa, which is flat as a piece of paper. The hill where Vincent Price created him is a special effect.
The bench is indeed too small. Look at the height of the wheelchair seat in comparison.
Being a fiber person, I was looking at the clothes myself. I agree with Joseph that they're well done. Also, it's nice (and unusual) to see a kid who doesn't look like a miniature 40-year-old (Old Masters just couldn't pull off babies that look like babies; the thing that made the biggest impression on me when the MFA had a huge Renoir exhibit years and years ago was that he could paint babies that looked like babies and children that looked like children).
CambridgeKnitter: The Old Masters had difficulties with babies and horses and dogs because they don't stand still. Photography taught artists how to paint such things.
People can stand still. Actually, they needed to do so only long enough for the artist to capture a likeness: The costume was usually clothing on a mannequin, and even the hands might be taken from plaster casts.
George Stubbs was able to capture some very lifelike horses. I imagine he studied stuffed specimens. Still, it's clear that he had acquired detailed "inside out" knowledge of horse anatomy.
I share the Cannonical Law of beholding the artist's vision instead of the content, narrative, or 'meaning' in a work. After the Industrial Revolution, children began to be regarded as victims, then as innocents, and in our time as dear, fragile, and always at risk.
Before, children were regarded as small adults and treated as adults. We don't find cuddlesome versions in literature much before the 19th century. Think of how 19th-century Hawthorne renders the 17th-century Pearl, Hester Prynne's 3-year-old, who's already world-weary and plenty savvy. "The Scarlet Letter" is remarkable for its restrained hindsight and accuracy.
The Old Masters painted what they saw and believed: small adults who never had a sugar high. I don't recall ever seeing a Matthew Brady picture of anyone smiling. The children in Dorothea Lang's depression-era photographs look like small adults (to me). Smiling subjects seem to be a regular feature of mass media and public relations, the rule rather than the exception. Happiness used to mean good fortune, now it means fun.
Renoir (among the best) accurately portrayed his impressions of children; he was nearly a contemporary of Freud; he knew things the Old Masters never imagined. Many of his subjects smile: it makes us wonder why they are smiling. (I can see his young son Jean, or perhaps August himself as a boy, embedded in some of his paint, background and foreground, abundantly joyful.) Camille Pissaro painted a young peasant woman or older peasant girl (a teenager) whose pallor and expression reveals a version of eternal sadness. Only the absence of sag, roughness, and wrinkles shows that she is very young. Many clues in the painting suggest an abortion, its likelihood, or a tragic fate instead.
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