Wall Street Journal article on presidential portraiture

[Sharon Knettell]

Originally Posted by Valentino Radman

It is the indescribable quality which transforms a paint covered surface into a genuine piece of art. One looks at it and just knows that it will mean something to a generation hundred of years from now, just like portraits of Raphael, Titian, Velazquez, Van Dyck, Thomas Lawrence, Ingres, Sargent, Zorn etc mean something to today's generation (well, to those who care about art and have developed a good taste).

You can feel it in the works of, say, Silverman, Whitaker, Dinnerstein and some (but not in too many) others.

There are maybe a few others, but I do think Valentino is right on. These are made to be icons of our government, they rarely can be transformative in the way say a Manet is. The content is completely dictated as well as the rather rigid parameters.