Wall Street Journal article on presidential portraiture

[Garth Herrick]

Great discussion!

I have gathered up some personal snapshots from last summer to throw in. Two are portraits at the Union League in Philadelphia, which has an extensive collection of Republican presidents; some pretty dull. I do not care for their Eisenhower, Hoover, or Nixon portraits.

However I do like the two Kinstlers of Ford and Bush, Sr., and there is a nice Reagan by Shanks. Compositionally (to me), the Philadelphia Kinstler portraits are far more satisfying than the example Catesby Leigh chose from the National Gallery. The Portrait of Gerald Ford, seated, seems a companion to the standing image, authough it was painted some years later in 2004. I think the space is defined better atmospherically with that anchoring chair. Being less frontal, the pose is more interesting too. It says much about the man. The composition builds to the head, as the element with the most dramatic paint complexity and contrast. In general I really like and respect Kinstler as a leading portrait painter.

The National Gallery Ford portrait has a wonderfully strong head as well; certainly well observed from life. But to me, the rest of the painting falls relatively flat, and does not properly support the head. I saw it last summer in DC, and interestingly, I only photographed the head detail, because the portrait as a whole did not interest me enough. For me the space is confusing with its nebulous flatness. All the suit has the same paint handling as does the background, and there seem to be little if any value shifts to organize the elements in my reading of the image; so overall it is a relatively dull portrait to me. The face itself does have some depth of character though. It has wonderful passages of painting. One thing that is missing from the equation is the frame, which may be a fundamental element of the overall composition. I notice that the Philadephia Kinstler's require their frames to tie the whole image together. It's like we are deliberately viewing these through a window opening.

I hope this is not too brutal, so far...

Garth