Barack Obama is back in the bush

Not for making that crap. Wiley obviously didn't learn from a whitey.

 

Yeah, it's right down the street -- and free!

 

But it looks just like him! I certainly won't confuse that portrait with any other black president.

 

Rush has been talking about this the entire first hour of the show.

Shocker! He doesn't love them.

He also thinks they're in the White House.

 

Wait until he looks up some of Wiley's other paintings.

Like 'Judith and Holofernes.'

 

And I thought some would be offended that the country's best-known White Sox fan would have a portrait made against the outfield wall at Wrigley Field.

 

I wasn't really speaking of the grayscale use so much as the lack of detail in Michelle's face.

But, at any rate, to each their own. I know how art works today and for many decades; so long as you can fit a narrative to the artwork, and enough people believe that narrative, it's great art. Tom Wolfe lamented that years ago in The Painted Word. I'm surprised when I do see negative art criticisms anymore. It's not so much about the art but the personal story, and Sherald has a good one.

I mean, it's not like the NYT's critic was going to criticize the portraits, even if the critic didn't like them. That's just not what happens these days.

 

I am by no means an art afficiando. I mean, I know what I like and what I don't. I like these, but I've always been drawn to art with an element of surrealism or absurdism in it. My opinion doesn't matter though.

Despite my acknowledgement that I'm not reading the art & style section of the New York Times daily, I can think of several critical reviews in recent years of prominent art releases. There was George Zimmerman's American flag and later his Confederate flag; and George W. Bush's paintings have received mixed reviews. Do I need to blue font this part? I'm not sure.

 

Considering the national portraits are less conventional, I'm surprised the Obama portraits are really neither here nor there. And maybe it's just me, but I think they're both more about the artist than the person depicted. When I think of Obama, I don't think of horticulture. And Michelle's image makes her seem much more "distant" than what we think of her.

 

Clearly.

"Aficion means passion. An aficionado is one who is passionate about the bullfights."

 

That was my thought as well. Mr. Obama's portrait is....OK. Mrs. Obama's just wasn't that good, IMHO. It's kind of boring, which I don't think captures her at all.