I recently commented on the powerful portraits of Barack and
Michelle Obama that grace the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC. They
were painted, respectively, by Los Angeles-based artist Kehinde Wiley (b. 1977)
and Baltimore's (by way of Georgia) Amy Sherald (b. 1973). Both were
controversial. Some have found the president's portrait too informal and wonder
why he sits amidst a sea of foliage. The hard right also claims that Kehinde
Wiley advocates race war. Sherald gets off easier; critics merely say her image
doesn't look like Michelle Obama and that Sherald has little talent for
capturing likenesses.
As is generally the case in art, such statements reflect personal
preference. and bias. Self-appointed guardians of taste have denounced
virtually every 'new' style of art—including that of the Impressionists—as the
work of talentless and crass poseurs seeking to destroy all that is established
and sublime.
Sherald has talent galore. Artists often have different
intentions that go beyond simple representationalism. Sherald insists her major
goal was to present Michelle Obama as an archetype of the modern woman:
intelligent, confident, and compassionate. She also snuck in some hidden meaning.
The patterns in the First Lady's dress both invoke the bold geometric shapes
inherent in African design and the African American piecework found in the
quilts of Gee's Bend. There's also a lot of blue in the composition, which
evokes struggle and activism in East Africa. Her nail polish is the color of a
lily, sacred in Egypt and parts of East Africa.
As for Wiley, those who think paintbrushes are swords,
accuse Wiley of reverse racism and advocating violence. It might help if the
Fox News "experts" took an Art 101 course. Wiley depictions such as a
contemporary black man wielding a scimitar, or a black woman holding the
severed head of a white woman are political, but not in asserted ways. First,
they are takeoffs on classic art, a favorite theme of Wiley's. His blue jean
clad warrior is his remake of The
Charging Chasseur (1812), an iconic work by Thédore Gėricault that hangs in
the Louvre. Does he want you to imagine strong black men as dashing Hussars? Of
course he does. Does he want black women to relieve white women of their heads?
Ridiculous! These are spins on centuries of depictions of the Biblical legend
of Judith and Holofernes. Wiley wouldn't mind at all, though, if you made associations between slave mistresses
and their mistreatment of female servants—especially those their white husbands
coerced into sexual congress.
Let's take a deeper look at the Barack Obama portrait. The
president—who negotiated with Wiley and insisted upon a more relaxed bearing—isn't
sitting in a garden. It's actually a wallpaper backdrop. This is also a very old
art convention; itinerant Chinese and Tibetan artists to this day travel with
backdrops. Why not? Would you rather a blank wall? Have you ever noticed that most portraits have backgrounds, even if
they are splotches of contrasting color? The textured wallpaper device, though,
is often found in African and African-American art. For the most part, it
denotes that the person sitting in front of it is a person of power and/or high
status. You can find many examples of chiefs, "big men," and
important people sitting amidst elaborate designs. Wiley simply does this more
often. He has even painted himself this way.  |
| Wiley 'selfie' |
Power and visible status symbols are integral to art more
because of sociology than artistic invention—and in the West, not just Africa.
You used to be able to know at a glance if a person was of noble birth; only
European aristocrats were allowed to wear purple. If you've ever been to
Amsterdam, you might wonder what's up with all those wall-to-wall images of men
wearing stiff collars. They were, of course, Dutch burghers and they were posed
showing off their status symbols: medals and sashes showing they held office, a
quill denoting they were literate, serious faces to suggest gravitas, even
finger gestures that the knowing could decode. The Jean de Bray image below is
typical.
The Founding Fathers were men of the people, right? Hardly!
Lots of them distrusted commoners intensely, which is why we have archaic stuff
like the Electoral College and indirect representative democracy. Some of them
literally wore their status upon their heads in the form of powdered wigs, as
we see in this portrait of presidents 2 through 4: Adams, Jefferson, and
Madison. Puritan ministers also wore powdered wigs; British barristers still
do. The idea of wearing someone else's hair has long been a status symbol, one
that goes back at least as far as the ancient Egyptians. And, for the record,
Britain's Queen Elizabeth I was as bald as a billiard ball.
How many status symbols make their way into official
portraits and photos? I've seen scores of images of Elizabeth II with a crown,
but I've yet to see her wearing a ball cap turned backwards. That's what makes
Wiley's self-portrait so deliciously subversive! Oh, by the way, here's a shot
of some members of the Vatican's College of Cardinals. Do you think it looks this
way because they all coincidentally love the color red? Maybe status is an ego thing, but how
many ways does it make its way into how people present? Croziers and castles,
jewels and jubilation, furs and fancy threads, tattoos and thrones, Rolexes
and royal yachts….
So black folks are getting into the act? About time! I'm
thinking of buying me some fancy wallpaper too. Any budding artists out there
who want to elevate my status?
Rob Weir
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