The Obamas, Neanderthals and Art

There were two major news stories about paintings this last month. First, it was fun to see paintings being the center of nation-wide media attention with the release of President and First Lady Obama's portraits. The first African-American couple in the White House had their portraits painted by African-American artists, the first to do presidential portraits. The artists are Amy Sherald and Kehinde Wiley.

To begin with, these paintings are meaningful on that level alone. Even if these were the same type of portraits as their predecessors, these would have additional meaning because of who the artists are and who sat for them. But, in addition, each of the artists took the portrait format in unconventional directions, which fits with their previous works but not previous presidential portraits. They were chosen by the Obamas precisely because they would bring new life to a rather formal and predictable tradition.

President Barack Obama's portrait was painted by Kehinde Wiley, an artist who for many years has been painting African-American people in what would be considered traditional depictions of the aristocracy and the gods. They are very dramatic and often very large.

Although President Obama's portrait certainly stands out amongst the portraits of previous presidents, it doesn't "wow" me. Mr. Wiley has always shown a great ability to paint hands, and I love the President's hands in this portrait. Real bone and sinew under the skin with amazing tonality. The rest is convincingly painted, but to me seems a little more flat, a little less lively than the hands.

That said, paintings can be a completely different experience in person and I would love to see these in person.

Michelle's portrait is painted by Amy Sherald. An artist that has just recently returned to her painting after dealing with family illnesses, including her own, for many years. Ms. Sherald's portraits tend to the minimal in emotion and composition. She paints her subject's skin in greys and does not create lifelike likenesses in terms of detail. Her subjects are simplified, becoming almost interchangeable from portrait to portrait. The dress is a very important part of this portrait compositionally and in terms of meaning.

The dress is large, First Lady Obama could be sitting on a high stool underneath it. The colors and patterns represent different ideas. But, quite frankly, I read about them and immediately forgot and didn't care. Really... I read a very nice, rather long, article about what Ms. Sherald tries to achieve in this work, but if I have to read that much to understand what an artist is doing symbolically, I just don't care. As an image, I really like the painting. I like it better than her husband's. The solid colors are soothing and reassuring. The portrait is strong and depicts someone who is nobody's fool, yet there is an elegance to her. I think the portrait, within Ms. Sherald's style, captures Michelle, but it is a somber side of her.

These portraits will break the tradition of the staid traditional presidential portrait, which is good for art. It gets to a point with certain genres where the artists are no longer taking chances and being human, but become a factory trying to meet expectations. A shaking up of ideals is good for art and for people. It challenges the status quo and pushes us to consider things that have become Cannon. Limiting our idea of what is "right" to what is acceptable never leads us to our full selves, never leads us to something that makes us better humans.

As could have been predicted, there are people who do not like the portraits simply because it is the Obamas. When it comes to the Obamas, there are some people that will never be happy. Many of them are racist and don't want to accept that a person with dark skin can be their equal... or even their superior. They can't accept that this country is only as great as it is because of the labor and sacrifice of African-Americans. Somehow they think this is a challenge to their own contributions and turn around and do nothing but belittle and deflect the accomplishments of people with darker skin.

Another art story out this month is about cave paintings in Spain. Three caves were discovered to have paintings on the walls that predate Homo sapiens' arrival to the peninsula. This means that they were painted by Neanderthals. Until now, Neanderthals were considered to be cognitively inferior to Homo sapiens and there has been no known example of Neanderthal art. But the art in these caves, in particular in that they have some complexity to them, show that Neanderthals may have had the same cognitive abilities as Homo sapiens. These paintings pre-date any art by Homo sapiens by 20,000 years.

Cave painting in Spain

One of the things that I love about life is that, through art, not only can we challenge our understanding of people today and set the future in a new direction, but we can also make discoveries from thousands of years ago that can change our understanding of the world. Until now, it was thought that Neanderthals went extinct because they were not as smart as Homo sapiens. For hundreds of years we have had this negative view of Neanderthals simply because we "won" on evolutionary terms. We have turned Neanderthal into a derogatory name for someone who is dumb and brutish. Other studies are also coming out showing that Homo sapiens and Neanderthals interbred more than previously thought. Wouldn't it be like Homo sapiens to have inherited our culture and refinement from the Neanderthals and then turned around and belittled them and gave them a dirty name?