Painting the President
by Tony Warner

"An artist is someone who can hold two fundamentally opposing views and still function." (F.Scott Fitzgerald.)

 

Somewhere in the People's Republic	Somewhere in a modern democracy
To be asked to paint the President is an honour, a duty and a dangerous assignment. One may not refuse. To do so would block one's copybook, indicating a lack of loyalty to the régime or a holding of subversive tendencies, both political and aesthetic. Which also gives me pause. Our country holds to a standard approach to portrait painting. All colours are to be as naturalistic as possible, no garish tones or toying with extravagant light effects. No nonsense about 'warts and all', either. Think in terms of fashion magazines or expensive advertising campaigns. Brush over any blemishes, use a cunning variety of light sources to display the subject's best features and hide the less attractive. Not that I am implying that our President has any bad features, of course. True, he has a chin like the front of a Panzer tank, but this merely demonstrates his determination to improve the wellbeing of our people. His eyes are too close together for perfection, the result of excessive late night study of economic theory in his pursuit of a better life for the masses. A gentle turn of the head, allied to a careful lightening of the shadows, will make the chin less prominent, though the eyes remain a problem. I can enlarge them slightly, eliminate the sagging bags, further turn the pose to a full half face, allowing perspectival exaggeration to add greater distance between them. All in all, that will make him look less like the rapacious pig he is. Sorry, I allowed that to slip out. I will eliminate the comment later when I revise what I have written.   What is the President now? How does he wish to be presented to the people? He is well past the gloriously revolutionary stage when he wore battle fatigues and sported tousled hair. To be succeeded by the functionary who put all to rights, shown sitting behind his desk signing new laws into being and initialling thousands of death warrants for the enemies of the people. One of my colleagues essayed a portrait of him in full military regalia: medals, gold braid, tassels over the shoulder. Looked like a comedy general from a film about a banana republic. Even the security police laughed at it when it was unveiled. The artist hasn't been seen since. I will play it safe. Dress him in a sombre suit with a badge of the republic on his lapel pus a quietly matching toned-down tie. Brown shoes, like any honest working man, the produce of a local manufacturer. One hand to rest on a statue representing Liberty. Surely the National Museum can come up with something? All placed in the atrium of the Parliament building with the Speaker's chair seen through the open doorway, either side of which stands the banner of the national flag and that of the President's political party. Somewhere I need to work in the Party's slogan of 'Peace and Prosperity.' I'll need to hold off a while on the slogan in case it changes or the President decides to invade yet another of our neighbours. Painting can be such a difficult occupation when one is standing on shifting sands.	God, I hate commissions. Trouble is, they bring in both money and media attention. Media coverage puts up my prices and makes me more desirable. Bringing in more commissions, so I don't have any time in which to do my real work. Such is life!   There was supposed to be a competition to decide who gets to paint the new President, but my agent went to school with the chairman of the selection committee. That's why I employ him. He knows bugger all about art but is friends with everyone who is worth knowing. This new President is a dull, grey man, the sort you wouldn't recognise if you passed him in the street. His predecessor was at least moderately pretty which, if the rumours are true, was how she got the job in the first place. Before her was the comedian, straight out of a television sitcom. Everyone loved him until he nearly doubled the taxes and almost got us involved in a nuclear war. The question remains: how do I make a man with the personality of a peanut look interesting? Could do a Picasso, I suppose, showing both sides of his face at the same time, but everyone would start making jokes about 'two-faced politicians' and supposing I was making a party political point. Or I could splash the colour around like Matisse, all bright blues, reds, yellows and a green stripe down his nose. 'Typical of him,' my enemies would say, 'always scared of making a decision on his own.' Basquiat would turn the whole canvas into graffiti on the side of a tube train, marching at it spray can in hand. Or a clever Banksy, blowing the whole project out of the water with a witty attack on the President's policies. I rather like that, but it's not really my style and I've no idea what his policies are anyway. Whatever I do has to be 'challenging and up to the moment' according to the brief. The sort of thing to get me on television and the front page of the conservative newspapers, fulminating about woke culture and 'yet another dreadful waste of taxpayers' money.' So, I need a researcher, a film maker, an expert in AI and an animations person. Stage one is to load as much information as possible about the President into the database; to include all his past speeches, interviews, articles and family reminiscences. At the same time the film maker interviews everyone who has ever known him, from the time of his birth up to his inauguration. If I can find someone to fund it, we could keep this going until the President leaves office, or even for as long as he lives. Stage two builds on the database to produce instant answers to queries: 'where did he grow up?'; 'what is his position on government borrowing?' A bit dull, but the political nerds will love it. Finally, we add on the holographic element. Request a speech or a statement and there is the President holding forth in front of you in glorious Dolby stereo. Perhaps we can even get the system to write his next speech as well. Or you can call up his mother or his first girlfriend or the person he stabbed in the back so he could become his party's leader. The National Gallery can build a special extension in which to display it. Financed and sponsored by an appropriate technology company, which I'll persuade to pay me a fortune to endorse their work, allowing me to retire somewhere warm and comfortable and never have to deal with this ridiculous art business ever again.

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