J.J. McCullough

did-you-kno:

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First is the handsome portrait of the former prime minister of Jamaica, Norman Manley (1893-1969), as painted by the great Jamaican artist Barrington Watson. Barrington was the Jamaican government’s official portrait artist for most of the country’s modern history, and painted every prime minister from 1959 to 2006.

Then they got a new guy. He’s not nearly as good, as you can tell by the official portrait of the current prime minister, Portia Simpson Miller.

Source.

It’s been a while since I’ve reviewed any official portraits.

This is the official portrait of now-former Pope Benedict XVI, painted by Natalia Tsarkova, the official Vatican portrait artist who is controversially not Catholic. According to a recent interview with Tsarkova, the Pope “chose to be portrayed holding a notebook with his speeches, while the angels on his elaborate chair come to life and gaze at him. A dove symbolizing the Holy Spirit bathes him in radiant light.”

As I’ve said before, part of the reason why official portraits are so awful these days is because the subjects themselves have too much influence over them. Of course the Pope would want to be depicted in the most ostentatiously godly manner possible — that’s why he’s a pope and not an artist. Compare the potrait above, which is almost Thomas Kinkade-y in its saturated cheesiness, with perhaps the most famous pope portrait of all time, Diego Velazquez’s Portrait of Pope Innocent X (1650):

If you look at the two portraits side-by-side, which pope looks more secure in his legacy?

Here’s another doozy. Check out the official portrait of John Ralston Saul, the husband of former Canadian governor general Adrienne Clarkson (or, to cite his official taxpayer-funded title, the “vice-regal consort”):

It’s worth noting that John Ralston Saul made his fame and fortune in life as a postmodernist philosopher. The fact that he chose “mountaintop kayak holder” as the image to leave with future generations reveals a lot about his own insecurities. This unsettling business of political figures electing to depict themselves as heroic outdoorsmen rather than nerdy do-nothings is a fairly common one; previous offenders have included Howard Dean and, well, Governor General Clarkson herself.

Next we have what may very well be the single worst portrait I’ve ever seen, the official portrait of former governor general Michaelle Jean:

This isn’t really a “portrait” at all, it’s more like a propaganda mural of the Dear Leader you’d see in Maoist China. It’s got young people, veterans, aboriginals, seniors, babies, and of course at least one representative of every race, all brought together into a single feel-good rainbow of harmony by the Governor General’s heroic presence and purposeful smile.

This is good example of the sort of shlocky art you get when no one’s willing to say no.

Look at the Velazquez portrait again and marvel at how far we’ve come.

nationalpost:

Craving a Trudonut? How about a Justin Beaver Tail? We present some ‘Canadian icon’ doughnut suggestions for Tim Hortons
When Canadian actor Jason Priestley, playing himself, said on the U.S. sitcom How I Met Your Mother that he had proudly crammed a Timbit into a strawberry vanilla doughnut, Tim Hortons responded with a fake ad for “The Priestley.” The National Post‘s Steve Murray takes a look at what other Canadians, and Canadian institutions, could be likewise honoured with their own delicious doughnut.

explore-blog:

From Polish photographer Marcin Ryczek comes this, as Colossal aptly puts it, “once-in-a-lifetime photograph of a man feeding swans and ducks from a snowy river bank in Krakow.”

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mattbors:

Editorial cartoonist Bill Day hit his fundraising goal on the crowd funding site Indiegogo this week: $35,000 to keep drawing editorial cartoons for a year. Day is syndicated through Cagle and, like the rest of us, can’t make a full time living with the rates we are paid. Since he lost his staff…

(Source: mattbors.com)

(Source: dodobirdverdict, via statscanada)

(via blowhole-boogie)

didyouknowgaming:

Pokemon.

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