an ex-president’s appeal -- the power of paint

I’ve started watching the late evening talk shows for the monologues at the beginning and skipping the celebrity guests there to sell a book or promote a movie, but held on for the former president, W, and his portraits of immigrants just published in a book. I’ve followed his art career from the shattered, penitent realization of the enormous responsibility he had taken so lightly and the wrong that was committed in his name, just guessing, up until now, when he intends to use his newly acquired expressive skill to influence the national mentality -- like a superpower.

As a painter he was awkward and unsure of himself at first but willing to endure the public abuse of art critics and comedians to bare his soul and expose his personal reconstruction, and such honesty and openness were at least disarming. His early paintings were approximate, sometimes barely recognizable, and they had a primitive almost child-like quality. His family and the world thought him addled and in psychic retreat, so sad, but he paid his dues everyday, you can tell. He doesn’t need the money and he’s famous enough already, so what is he after?

What must have begun as a psychic retreat, time to wrestle with what can be imagined vs what can be achieved on the ground level, eventually transformed into an avenue of redemption and an assertion of personal perspective. It’s good we saw the early stuff and don’t have to believe he came out of nowhere with this book. He’s a lot better than he was, and although he paints each immigrant from photographs, he also tells each individual story and his portraits say more about each person than their photo. He intends to use his portraits to humanize refugees and immigrants and to make them individually visible in the american mind. Art critics don’t need to be involved, and W is self-possessed enough these days to stand his ground with comedians, still has the self-effacing chortle.

From has-been buffoon to most relevant and seriously influential painter in america isn’t bad for ten years. Laura says ‘he goes to the studio everyday,’ as in at least I know where he is, and I believe her. Is he good, maybe not like those olympian color-field expressionists worth all the millions, but you’d have to say he’s taken charge, that he commands and the paint listens. I’d be willing to bet that given good health and all things equal he’ll be a lot better ten years from now, since now that he’s found himself again he doesn’t want to stop. Good for him, he’s bound to be happier but what does his most visible transformation say to the rest of us -- that character and truth can be expressed in paint, tangible and immutable, and we can all see it. Now isn’t that interesting?