Robert Kelley's Blog

A View From Left Field
OCTOBER 29, 2009 4:15PM

When Rightwingers Produce Art, Comedy Ensues

Rate: 3 Flag

Here is about the cheesiest hyper-patriotic right wing fundamentalist artwork you'll ever see:

http://mcnaughtonart.com/artwork/view_zoom?artpiece_id=353#

 NOTE:  The site seems to be rather slow to load at times.  Dialup users may find it impossible.  

Anyway, on its technical merit, I have to say it isn't bad.  I wish I could paint as well.  However, this is to art what Donny and Marie were to music.  It's not that they sang off key, it was the crap that they sang.  Same here.

Where to begin?  Let's start with those sinners in the lower right corner.   Satan looks on in appreciation at the liberal news reporter and the lawyer counting his C notes.  Mr. Hollywood and the politician are looking with smugness and disdain at the other sinners.  The pregnant lady is in Sinner's Corner, and if you look close you can see no wedding ring.  That's why she's there.  Not sure why she needs to point to Trig Palin in order to justify carrying her child to term.  What part of "choice" in "pro choice" is she not grasping?  The professor is holding Darwin's book.  Yes sir,science is not to be trusted.

The judge is the most interesting figure in Sin Corner.  He's in despair over some papers scattered about him.  In chronological order, the cases are:
Marbury v Madison (1803).  Really?  He's against the principal of judicial review?  I'm not sure that argument would even gain traction from Scalia.  
Martin V Hunter Lessee (1816)  Really?  He doesn't think the Supreme Court should trump state courts?  Exactly what role does he think the Supreme Court should play?  Apparently none.
Gibbons v Ogden (1824)  A case about interstate commerce has the justice in despair before Jesus?  What does Jesus care about interstate commerce?  Must be that Jesus that loves corporate power.
Everson v Board of Education (1947)  Oh yes, that evil separation of church and state.  Wouldn't things be just peachy if we could make kids recite the Lord's Prayer in the public schools?  Of course, maybe the Jewish or Muslim or atheist kids wouldn't feel the same way.  Which is why we don't allow the state to endorse any particular religion.  The right wingers aren't happy that kids can pray silently (who could ever know?) or that they can pray at home or at church.  No, that's not good enough.  They want to bring Christianity back into the public classroom, which is where it does not belong.
Roe v Wade (1973).  You KNEW he was going to include that one.
Kelo v New London (2005)  One can argue about eminent domain for the purposes of benefitting a private entity.  They might even have a point here.   To think that Jesus cares about this is a stretch indeed. 

Let's move on to the Corner of the Saints.  Well, we have the farmer.  Farmers are always nice, God-fearing folk.  Then there's the family doctor.  He's dressed for a hayride with the farmer after Jesus and the undead behind him clear out.  Then the business woman, struggling to keep her conservative values?  Why?  Why does working make it hard for her to keep her values?  Better that she be barefoot and pregnant I guess.  There's the Christian minister (note he's not one of those liberal Catholic priests) holding the Bible.  The schoolteacher is in this corner.  I guess this means that primary and secondary education is A-OK with Jesus, but college education is for the devil's work.  Then there's the token black college student, holding one of the painter's favorite books, The Five Thousand Year Leap.  What do we know about this book?  Well, Glenn Beck wrote the forward, does that give you a clue?  Anyway, if this is a text for a class, that university should forfeit all its football games.  Go ahead, look up some reviews.  Well, maybe college is sort of OK as long as you don't learn liberal stuff.  There's the US Marine, with the folded flag.  What's up with a fold representing "In God We Trust"?  Pretty powerful fold.  Then there's the mother with the handicapped child.  She's letting her kid touch the Constitution.  Big whoop.  Barbara Bush let her kid crap on it.

The most interesting of the saintly corner is the immigrant.  Here is this Scary Brown Person who isn't a Christian, but sees the error of his ways when he realizes that Christ is the source of America's goodness.  The implicit message is that you can come here (with proper papers of course) but you darn well better convert to Christianity.

Now let's move to the undead of the upper right part of the painting.  Abe Lincoln is just wrapping up his rendition of "Mammy" (with backup from the WW II soldier to the left) while Adams and Hamilton accompany him doing a soft shoe duet.  Washington is holding his heart and cursing under his breath that Lincoln got the big song number and he didn't.  Other presidents include Teddy Roosevelt, who in his description stated that he favored a "strong federal government", sort of the same things that the justice is in despair over in the foreground.  We have John Q Adams (why) and his mother Abigail, presumably because you can't show the undead without the Adams family.  We see Sam Adams as well, he's way off to the back enjoying the aftereffects of a good beer.  JFK makes an appearance as the token Democrat, as does Ronald Reagan the "true patriot of freedom".  Seriously, what are Reagan and JQ Adams doing here?   Might as well bring in Millard Fillmore and Chet Arthur.  Hale, Henry, and Revere are there representing the Revolutionary era.  There is a black soldier bearing the name "King" in honor of Martin Luther King, whom the painter probably despised as a communist but that's just my guess.  There is an F-16 pilot to represent all pilots, fair enough I suppose.

Moving to the upper left part of the painting, we see James and Dolly Madison, strategically placed to the back to make a quick escape if the capital is burned again.  Tom Jefferson stands by, spindling his copy of the Declaration of Independence.  There are a few signers of that declaration in the back, as obscure in the painting as they were in history.  Christa McAullife is there, representing the cheap emotional ploy.  Guess the WTC wouldn't quite fit in the painting.   Ike is in the back as well.  A few more token blacks are in the back row lest they get too uppity, Frederick Douglas, Harriett Tubman, and the black Union soldier.  John Hancock is way back in the far corner, in retribution for hogging so much space on the Declaration.  Several generations of soldiers are here, the Revolutionary War, the Civil war soldier, the World War I soldier (sporting Batman's utility belt), and the WW II and everything after soldier, who is providing backup vocals for Lincoln on the other side of Jesus.  Ben Franklin looks a bit disgusted to be there, as if Susan B Anthony is cutting some real nasty farts behind him.  Davy Crockett is there, probably because the artist likes painting coonskin hats.

The center of the piece is Jesus, who needs no introduction.  Also interesting to note is that the flag by the Supreme Court building is labeled "Fifty stars.  Some stars shine brighter than others."  Sounds like Sarah Palin on the campaign trail, speaking of the "pro-American part of America".  I'm sure the painter feels that New York and Vermont and California are a little less American than God-fearing Tennessee and Georgia. 

To say this is over the top is like saying Donald Trump had a bad hair day.  Holy cow.  Anyway, check out the parody at this site:
http://www.shortpacked.com/McNaughton%20Fine%20Art.htm

 

 

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Comments

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Communists aren't the only artists in the world,some of the most talented actors in the history of hollywood were "right wingers". George C. Scott, Charlton Heston,Jon Voight,the list goes on.
I don't know why he bothered with the painting, since he wrote the whole manifesto explaining it, just in case we sinners didn't get it.
Come to Berlin sometime and I can show you at least a dozen such paintings - usually splattered onto the walls of prefab schools and former Communist Party buildings - except that they usually display Marx and Lenin rather than Jesus and Reagan. The style and, I suspect, the underlying mentality are pretty much identical. In my experience, this sort of thing is symptomatic of a deeper pathology. As Bertolt Brecht wrote in his play "Galileo": "Pity the land that needs heroes."
Brian, I guess I'm not asking this artist to be a communist, just a little less over the top. This is so much so that it becomes its own parody.

Ardee, I agree.

Alan, if you know of any sites showing the communist artwork I'd love to see them. I find this genre to be morbidly fascinating.
Robert, check out this one, plus a detailed view: http://www.panoramio.com/photo/3978130
http://www.tagesziele.de/berliner-mauer/mauerweg-fotogalerie/fotogalerie13.htm
It's located on an outside wall of Goering's old Aviation Ministry, which later served as a main government building under the East German Communists and is now the Finance Ministry. The girls are wearing the blue shirt of the communist youth league.

At about the middle of this page you can see some details of the giant mural on the side of the "House of the Teacher" on East Berlin's Alexanderplatz. Click to enlarge!
http://www.rgb80.com/index/hausdeslehrers/relevance