Talk Elections

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http://www.mcnaughtonart.com/artwork/view_zoom/423

Be sure to visit the site for all the amazing metaphors and symbolism this painting is chock full of.

Style of painting reminds me of Manfred Deix.

That would make a spectacular poster.

Lovely painting ;)

This "artist" is the biggest panderer out there. He should stop feeding the trolls.

I liked this: "Occupiers gathered as angry mobs, arrested for disorderly conduct, assault, rape and even defecating in public and on Police vehicles.". As if defecating in public is worse than rape. Mind you, he is super far right...

subtle

He's like one of those really talented artists who spends their time drawing six titted dragons on DeviantArt. He should be drawing snowy landscapes for cheap Christmas cards.

Lief, you don't really like this, do you?

Good artist, shame he wastes his talent and gave in to the far-right. He's a birther too!

Way too cluttered for my tastes, but whatev. Art is in the eye of the beholder. One of my best friends is at a snooty art school in California and I don't dig her paintings either.

Social realist or social surrealist?

I don't really like the style.

Wow.

Art should be political, but politics should not dictate art. Art that is dictated by politics is fascist. Therefore this painting is fascist. Etc.

Though if you want irony as well, the style is rather reminiscent of so-called 'Socialist Realism':

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It's like a terrifying cross between Ilya Repin and Thomas Kinkade.

You can never tell with Lief.

Well anything would improve Thomas Kinkade, Swindler of Light.

It does improve Kinkade, but it's not at all clear that that outweighs the sins that it visits upon Repin.

Republicans are to art what Republicans are to comedy.

Yeah, McNaughton's basically a far-right propagandist who's popular among Utah conservatives. I see him, as a talentless, partisan hack, but that's just me. He's crazy enough that Brigham Young University (not exactly a bastion of liberalism) stopped selling prints of his paintings though.

When I'm elected President, I want Jon McNaughton to do my official portrait.

socialist realism was fascist?

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Oh yes; he's a pretty good artist, and would be a fantastic Congressional/Presidential portrait guy. There's no disputing that. He's just an utter propaganda guy for Glenn Beck-esque policies.

I think the painting has a subtle political message.

Technically he's rather good, but that's about it.

What's really funny is how similar the style and composition of his paintings are to these three:

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(And in case you're wondering, yes, the Syrian and Egyptian ones WERE in fact painted by North Koreans)

I think that's an intentional irony.

     It's a big step-up from the David Dees garbage that we had posted around here for a while. If you are going to look ridiculous, at least look decent at the same time.

It is awful -- cluttered, ugly, and propagandistic. One might as well have a painting of the interior of a slaughterhouse.

Political art has its hazards. If derogatory it has the usual perils of satire even if the message is obvious -- essentially that the Leader doesn't have a clue. Maybe one contrasts potentates living in opulent splendor while the common man suffers. If one has excessive reverence then one might as well paint a religious icon.

I checked the link and found heavy-handed politics with 'artistic' heavy-handedness to match. Anachronisms abound in a piece of 'art' that depicts 'traditional' heroes of America identified with the heroic working people contrasted with the villains of America -- an arrogant college professor who promotes 'godless' science, a liberal reporter out of touch, an attorney selling out justice and the general good for the gain of themselves and their clients, and a Supreme Court justice who  has put some legal principle above 'Americanism'... these are the 'wreckers' of all that is good. As for what is 'good' I notice Abraham Lincoln in the 'humble' pose of a theatrical performer accepting applause -- right next to Jesus. Such is blasphemous.

Political art is often the bastardization of art. It often unites people unlikely to meet (let us say coal miners and peasant farmers in socialist realism or research scientists and housewives in capitalist realism), introduces pointless anachronisms (an adult Lincoln next to an adult Washington is a favorite even though Washington died  two days short of nine years and three months before Lincoln was born). I'm no artist, but if I were to show any connection between Barack Obama and Abraham Lincoln I would show Obama reading about Lincoln.  

I am not an artist, but I can imagine how I would show the hypocrisy of our economic order. Titled, "The Wrong Exit", it shows some stereotype of a rich executive and his family... fifty-something executive with a bleached-blond wife thirty years her junior, with her stepson almost her age 'connected' to a sanitized-but-unreal 'virtual reality', and a stepdaughter in a riding habit  having made the wrong turn off the expressway in a luxury-marque SUV and into a modern Hooverville -- in shock and disbelief, seeking directions on how to get back to some desired destination. Maybe I show a drug deal or a low-end hooker, and the couple trying to shield the kids' eyes.

While this is Socialist Realist Complete Kitsch, it's also a welldone example of it.

You could have shown us far worse... such as the rest of the pictures shown in this thread.

Oh, true, true. But it's a very well known example of it, mainly because the propagandistic aspect of it is so disgusting.