Faces are the unspoken, unwritten catalog of events, every man’s souvenirs of emotional high tides and low ebbs. Like a remembered song they stand unblemished by time, the book-marked pages of our lives, tracing chapters of love and loss, times of unchecked misery and unfettered joy. Our untold stories vanish when these pages, these faces, disappear.Unless we can save the faces.
Portraits of the Presidents, from the National Portrait Gallery in Washington and now showing at the North Carolina Museum of History in Raleigh, is the official picture book of our national story. These are the faces of the men who led us here, the captured memories of our still young nation. Like history books which can either gloss or tarnish our national adventure, portraits can also revise history, and some of these paintings and photos present slightly skewed versions of our storied leaders. That’s a reasonable development considering glamour portraits didn’t begin with Andy Warhol, George Stephanopolous wasn’t America’s first spin meister, and Madonna didn’t invent vanity.
The star making machine was cranked up long before the pharaohs were entombed, and these portraits are only the latest improvement on the patent. From stony George Washington to Slick Willie, many of the faces of our leaders look, well… different than how I remembered. Norman Rockwell makes Dick Nixon look like a cover candidate for GQ.
The show isn’t all historical hype, not all happy spins. Abraham Lincoln looks rough. Battered and ravaged, he appears to have suffered 10 lifetimes in his 54 years. His face begs release from his struggle, but his eyes are resigned to his lot, refusing any imagined commutation of his sentence. He sweats his station without complaint, and any empathic viewer’s prayers, though appreciated, are respectfully ignored. In his last portrait, he is a man gutted and hollow; he stares at your forehead, not into your eyes. That face makes the tragic arrival of John Wilkes Booth look like a personal gift.
George Bush, the elder, stands formal and composed. He is self assured, and even — dare I say it? — a tad smug in his pinstripe suit and faint, knowing smile. The East room in the White house is vibrant gold, yet understated. George rests his hands on a black enamel chair. He looks like he is comfortable in the spare abundance of the East Room. He looks kinder and gentler than I remember him. Perhaps my memory serves me poorly.
Jimmy Carter also stands in the East room, but Jimmy’s East room is pale yellow, not muted gold. He doesn’t look as comfortable as George, he looks like a pensive man making an effort to appear relaxed. He looks like he knows he’s a visitor.
This portrait is unfortunate. Jimmy stands in a pale gray suit, his fingertips resting lightly on his desk. The painting is washy, thin, insubstantial. The dearth of dark color allows little contrast. Everything — walls, carpet, mantle, the man’s skin — is washed out, ethereal, bled of content. In contrast to George Bush, the man in the painting appears to lack substance and character. Now that’s some serious artistic spin.
The Museum has designed the portrait gallery well. This interior exudes an aura of hushed reverence by spotlighting the framed Presidents along the walls and keeping the main area of the gallery dimly lit. The portraits are displayed chronologically. The viewer in ushered along a serpentine walkway decorated with red, white and blue bunting every few feet. It’s library quiet here. The bunting keeps the place quietly festive.
The portrait of Thomas Jefferson by Mather Brown is gorgeous. This work is dated 1786 and was painted in London when Jefferson was serving as minister to France. Jefferson sits in 3/4 pose in black coat and frilly blouse. A scumbled scarlet and romanesque statue keep the background simple. Jefferson’s face is composed, intelligent and untroubled. His wig is Little Richard bleached white with a Doris Day curl. Brown’s brush work is loose and elegant, giving the sitter’s face a richness and beauty no photograph could approach. It’s one of the few portraits here which explains why the painted oil portrait will never face extinction.
When Lyndon Johnson saw his portrait painted by Peter Hurd in 1967, he claimed it to be “the ugliest thing I ever saw.” It was understood in Johnson’s White House that “artists should be seen, but not Hurd.” In his portrait, Lyndon Johnson stands in front of a concrete barrier with the United States Capital building lit up in the distance. Johnson holds a closed book tucked against his rumpled blue suit – it’s titled History of the United States. It’s a corny touch in a bad portrait. Lyndon appears stern, determined, a man who does not blink. He looks like he’s been told to look presidential, a pose he likely never voluntarily assumed again. This face is distant, anonymous and mean-spirited, and like an arrogant uncle, it will be forgotten when the visit is over. There is none of the real man here.
Dick Nixon, on the other hand, is hot. According to an account written by national Portrait Gallery senior historian Frederick S. Voss, artist Norman Rockwell had trouble painting Nixon because the man fell into the hard-to-capture category of “almost good-looking.” Rockwell decided to push the portrait in a direction of good-looking, the direction that indubitably pleased the subject. And push he did.
Richard Nixon strikes the posiest of poses. He sits with his right hand draped around a pleated velvet chair back, the fingers on his left hand curled thoughtfully around his chin. Thoughtful, but relaxed. OK, perfect. Hold it right there for a couple of days, Mr. President!
Rockwell has lent this portrait his patented All-American cheeriness. Here is the friendly man running the ferris wheel, well groomed, good natured, harmless. The president looks relaxed and trouble free, toothlessly smiling, the trademark knit in his brow erased. He is only Nixon in likeness; his remembered dislike-ness is just a bad memory.
And then there is Bill. The Giclee print on Somerset paper by artist Chuck Close shows a William Jefferson Clinton before he stuck his fingers in the garbage disposal. Close is the cinema verite artist of the portrait world. In this up close and personal drawing, Clinton smiles vaguely with one side of his mouth, but unlike Bush’s half smile, the expression doesn’t read as an unconscious aristocratic smirk. Bill looks sincere, even endearing, a boy accidentally grown up to be a man. He looks a little cocky, and deservedly so. It’s 1996, the economy is roaring and he’s headed for another exciting four year stint. Chuck Close’s photographic style flatters this Bill Clinton: He looks a little weathered, but not worn or worried; he has nothing to hide. He doesn’t look like an accident waiting to happen.
The famous photograph of John F. Kennedy by George Tames could be titled “Why would anyone want this job?” We see Kennedy hunched over a table, his silhouetted form haloed by a floor to ceiling window. We see him from behind; he stands both tall and bent, his hands carry the weight of his body, his head a small crown behind lifted shoulders. He looks thin and diminished in the glaring light pouring through the towering windows. The portrait manages to capture a likeness to all the Presidents, before and after this one.
This show will run through September 15, 2002 at the NC Museum of History in Raleigh. For more information, call (919) 715-0200, or go to http://ncmuseumof history.org
This article appears in Jul 10-16, 2002.
