Bush paints, but is he any good? Critics tacke W's talent - CNN
http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/20/opinion/george-w-bush-artist/index.htmlMat Gleason is art critic for Coagula Art Journal, a Los Angeles-based Web 'zine for art criticism.
George W. Bush paints like a beginning college art major. His draftsmanship is his weakest spot -- he is earnest but inexperienced, still trying to find a realistic form but too impatient to get to the fun part of making art to really sketch out and detail the thing he is trying to represent.
His greatest strength is his cropping and composition. He is not afraid of putting the subject of his art on the far side of a picture. If he puts something in the center, he is comfortable zooming in on it. He intuitively understands the psychology of a painting giving power to its subject by forcing the viewer to fill in the space of a picture outside of what is depicted. His color palette is conservative as he aims for realism, but once again, like his rendering, he is too impatient to get the painting going to blend and layer chroma, preferring to use color more as illustration than as mood. The haste in which these pictures appear to have been completed reveal an artist who wants to finish what he starts, pleased with delivering something good and pleasant instead of great and overwhelming. This is the kind of artist who will never make a masterpiece but will remain a favorite with his core audience.
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Evan Pricco is editor-in-chief of the San Francisco-based Juxtapoz Art and Culture Magazine. He has contributed essays to numerous books, as well as championed public art in talks around the world.
My feeling about George W. Bush's art is that it lacks any sort of conceptual depth or skill. It appears to be the work of someone who is trying to establish himself as a creative, introspective artist, but lacks both the technical chops or even knowledge of painting to make it something more than a hobby that should happen between clearing brush on the ranch or eating breakfast.
Moreover, it is hard to separate man from art in this case. Is there part of me that wishes George would have used such patience and, let's be honest, just one ounce of creativity and depth as President rather than exhibiting a surface-level thinking at that time? Yes. But then again, if his creative thinking and talent led us to a man who deep inside wanted to paint fouth-grade level doggy portraits, well, maybe we got the best of him in office. And yet again, good for him for going through what appears to be a cat period, too.
There is great kitsch art, there is also great merit in creating art for its own sake; I feel like this art is an accident that the world had to see. I don't see much interesting skill to note.
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While he has enough talent to make his subjects recognizable, that's where it stops.
I'm mentally comparing two bathtub pictures of the feet, the water, the drain. One is Stupid's. The other is Frida Kahlo's.
Stupid painted himself, the water, the drain and they are all recognizable. And that's it.
Kahlo painted those and then filled the canvas with her daydreams--NY buildings, a love affair, her parents, and more. I'm not the only person who has thought like this.
http://animalnewyork.com/2013/look-at-george-w-bushs-paintings/
His painting technique is crude beyond belief and his subject matter such that we don't learn a thing about the artist or the world he lives in except that it is empty and utterly banal.
Kahlo, on the other hand, was a very sophisticated technician as well as someone who allowed us a glimpse of her inner life with every painting.
The contrast is remarkable.
Oh, Stupid will sell better than Kahlo did during her lifetime, all to Republican idolators and oil buddies. However, everything will die with him, while Kahlo's art is considered more important with every subsequent year after hers.
Response to flamingdem (Original post)
Hilarious! 
The purple and blue background, so eh, catchy... and the chin, oh, the chin.
