A painting fit for a president

[emad]

This is George Bush's favourite work of art. He says it's heroic and inspirational. But what does it say about him? Jonathan Jones considers its artistic merits, while four other experts give their view

Friday February 1, 2008
The Guardian



Everyone has a picture on the wall with some personal meaning. When the art lover in question is George Bush, however, and he can't stop telling us all his eccentric views about it, our interest is naturally piqued.

Bush, it seems, has a great passion for a 1916 cowboy scene by WHD Koerner that hangs in his office. He loves telling people about its significance to him. According to The Bush Tragedy by Jacob Weisberg, published next month, when governor of Texas, Bush told staff the painting was called A Charge To Keep, a quote from his favourite Methodist hymn by Charles Wesley. He urged them to absorb the moral lesson of this "beautiful painting of a horseman determinedly charging up what appears to be a steep and rough trail. This is us," he said.

Yet a little digging by Weisberg has revealed that the picture in question originally portrayed a bad man, not a good man. It was first used in the Saturday Evening Post in 1916 to illustrate a story about a horse thief, and captioned as a picture of his flight from the law. Only later did it illustrate a story about Methodism.

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/art/visualart/story/0,,2250558,00.html


KINda looks like him...same constipated simian stare.......

[Snarkturian Clone]

1. Is this supposed to be a surprise?

So bush has an uninformed opinion about a painting just like he has of everything else.

[opihimoimoi]

2. Bush is the Nation Thief

[DemGa]

3. "Dubya's last ride"...nt

[hobbit709]

4. From the Slate article on this

Only that is not the title, message, or meaning of the painting. The artist, W.H.D. Koerner, executed it to illustrate a Western short story entitled "The Slipper Tongue," published in The Saturday Evening Post in 1916. The story is about a smooth-talking horse thief who is caught, and then escapes a lynch mob in the Sand Hills of Nebraska. The illustration depicts the thief fleeing his captors. In the magazine, the illustration bears the caption: "Had His Start Been Fifteen Minutes Longer He Would Not Have Been Caught."

The painting was subsequently recycled by the Saturday Evening Post to illustrate a nonfiction story. The caption that time was, "Bandits Move About From Town to Town, Pillaging Whatever They Can Find." Koerner published the illustration a third and final time in a magazine called the Country Gentleman. On this go-round, it was indeed used to illustrate a short story that related to Wesley's hymn. But the story's moral was a little off-message. According to Weisberg, it was "about a son who receives a legacy from his father—a beautiful forest in the Northeast and a plea to protect it from rapacious timber barons." Apparently nobody ever got around to notifying Bush's Interior Department.

More here http://www.slate.com/id/2182222/

[mwb970]

5. I love this story!

It's so bushlike. BTW, it seems obvious to me that the lead character is fleeing, not leading.

[emad]

6. Maybe that's Fitzie in pursuit....

about to subpoena him for the Plame biz...