Picking My Brain

I can’t believe I’m about to do this.  I’m about to defend the president.  Ick, I already feel dirty.
I spotted the title “George Bush’s favorite painting and why he doesn’t understand it” on one of my RSS feeds.  This took me to a Harper’s Magazine article that I found quite interesting.

The article is about Dub-ya’s favorite painting, “A Charge To Keep.”  He claims that it is his favorite painting because :

” …horseman determinedly charging up what appears to be a steep and rough trail. This is us. What adds complete life to the painting for me is the message of Charles Wesley that we serve One greater than ourselves.”

After spending many, many high school and college hours analyzing and dissecting art and literature, I can appreciate that Dub-ya feels such a strong connection to this piece.  If you have never experienced a work - be it book, painting, sculpture, music or movie- speak to you, you cannot imagine how powerful the experience is.

The article does research into the history of the artist and the painting.  Apparently it was commissioned to illustrate a short story and depicts a horse thief escaping from a lynch mob.”

Knowing the history of both the artist and the painting certainly does put a slant on the interpretation.  In this case, the artist probably had no other intention or motive than to depict the scene from the story.

However, I once had a teacher/professor that explained to us that no matter what the artist had in mind, a piece is always subject to the interpretation of the viewer.  Each person who sees this painting brings to it all of their experiences, ideals and beliefs.

Because viewing or reading is so subjective, this leads me to beleive that there is never a right or wrong answer.  No, the meaning I may see in a picture may not be the one the artist intended me to see, but that doesn’t discredit my experience or the meaning that I extract.

So yeah, Dub-ya is probably an idiot (all you have to do is look at the state of the union to figure that out).   But if that’s what this painting means to him - let him have it.  Frankly, I surprised that he can look at a work and analyze it and find meaning it it.  Didn’t think the ol’ boy had it in ‘im.

Something else I take issue with in the article is that the author states,

“Bush has consistently exhibited what psychologists call the ‘Tolstoy syndrome.’ That is, he is completely convinced he knows what things are, so he shuts down all avenues of inquiry about them and disregards the information that is offered to him.”

Who, exactly, has tried to explain this to Dub-ya?  And he really just shut them out and refused to listen to any other explanation?

My guess is the author is commenting on Bush’s failure to research the piece in the first place.  Yeah, if he really wanted to get that deep into the painting, Dub-ya could have done some research.  But it wasn’t necessary.  He saw a painting, and it spoke to him.  It had meaning to him and inspired him.  The power of that was probably more overwhelming than finding out the artist’s purpose.

If that’s the case, I’m sorry for the author.  Take a trip to some art museums, read some books, go see some movies, listen to some music.  Find something that speaks to you.  Then tell me if you need that research.  Yeah, it’s interesting to know, but you’re first reaction wasn’t wrong.  And neither was Dub-ya’s.

I’m having some picture uploading problems, I’ll add a copy of the picture as soon as I get that fixed.