
Kirsters Baish| It’s not unusual that upon a President and First Lady leaving the White House, portraits are commissioned of the pair. The portraits are then displayed at the Smithsonian Museum’s National Portrait Gallery. CNN reported that official portraits of former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama were displayed to the public on Monday during a small ceremony that took place in Washington.
The portrait of former President Barack Obama showed the 45th president sitting in a wooden chair in front of a background of greenery and flowers. The portrait was created by an artist named Kehinde Wiley. Wiley has become the first black artist to paint an official presidential portrait for the Smithsonian’s gallery.
?? Former US President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama stand before their portraits and respective artists, Kehinde Wiley and Amy Sherald, after an unveiling #Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery #Washington ? @saulloeb #AFP pic.twitter.com/iTno9p59lZ
— AFP Photo (@AFPphoto) February 12, 2018
Wiley has made a name for himself as the artist who adapts classic pieces of art into modern-day. He uses young “urban” men and women in regal positions and poses with bold and patterned backgrounds.
Wiley’s rendition of the late pop sensation Michael Jackson shows the singer on top of a horse. The horse painting was meant to bare resemblance to the classic portrait painting of Spain’s King Phillip II. In the original, King Phillip II is seen on top of a white charger with a battle scene behind him.
There are some other pieces in Wiley’s portfolio, however, that have been modernized from classics but are not as absurd. In fact, they are much more grim and seem to push the issue of racial violence.
In the story of Judith’s beheading of Holofernes, which is part of the Catholic Bible proper, a Jewish woman named Judith seduced an Assyrian general named Holofernes. She then beheaded the general who was out to kill her people. The story has been portrayed in classical artwork multiple times in the past.
Wiley’s version of the portrait shows Judith as a black woman rather than a Hebrew woman. The decapitated head of Holofernes is actually that of a female… and you guessed it, she’s white.
Conservative Tribune reported:
Take a moment to think what would have happened if President Trump were to commission an artist to paint a portrait of him and that artist was known for painting images of white people holding the heads of blacks. The double standard days of politics are over.