Jon McNaughton - and the failure of a "conservative artist"

If the picture above does not make you cringe then perhaps you are Jon McNaughton's audience.   But to this trained painter, the image looks like the worst of American realism.  It is not realistic at all.  There is no sea on earth that looks like this.  The image fits into what might be called the School of Thomas Kinkade - so trite as to be embarrassing.  

I love realistic paintings.  The western tradition of realism is what I learned and is at the heart and soul of what I still attempt when I do paint.  The following is a Maine seascape by Winslow Homer, who, unlike this son of Utah, really knew the sea.  If you cannot see the difference in quality of presentation, then (again) you are probably Jon's audience.  

Oh - no I won't try to tell you why one is good and the other is not.  That is not how you do it.  If I was with you, I might point my finger at a specific area in Homer's work and discuss it compared to an area in McNaughton's piece - but you are not hear.  A better method would be to spend time looking at art.  I suggest picking up books (from the library) on Winslow Homer and Thomas Eakins, and maybe thrown in Cezanne and Courbet.  Get books with lots of full page reproductions.   Looks through each book carefully and look every night for two weeks.  If then you don't understand something that is not easily said in words, then you may not have the eye for art.  

Visual art, whatever the narrative, is about visual content first.  If the visual aspects are poorly done, then there is no art.  

I decided to write about Jon McNaughton because I heard him as the subject of a segment on the Public Radio program, Studio 360.  I was not familiar with his work, but one look was enough.   

He appears to be a political conservative as well as someone who believes he operates within the larger tradition of realism.  But his realism is the realism of holy cards and calendars showing covered bridges.   I can respect his ability to sell his crap, but the art itself is garbage.  

By the way, if you want to see just how useless words are in describing visual art, try this from his website:  

Jon McNaughton is an established artist from Utah whose new paintings have attracted the international attention of millions over the last few years. Highly detailed religious and patriotic subjects are the focus of his paintings. The artist’s experiences and faith are the inspiration for his work.

“I have traveled to many places around the world to know my subjects, but when I work on a painting with many figures I will usually pose models and photograph them and then paint them as I see them in my mind. I choose to paint from the heart and evoke my personal vision into each painting.”

I prefer to paint pictures that I believe have relevance to what is going on in the world, that make a statement, that stand for something. I hope people will study the paintings and try to understand the deeper meaning. Some of the themes are controversial, but I feel strongly about what is happening in our world today. There are three kinds of people who view my paintings: Those who like it, those who hate it, and those who simply don’t understand. I am especially interested in this last category. I hope my work will create conversation and reach people on a deeper level. I like to use metaphor and multiple levels of meaning to reach my viewer. If it makes them think and feel, then it is successful.”

Deeper meaning.   Hmmm…  let’s examine one of his more famous pieces: 

Obamanation:

Amateurish on execution.  And meaningless.  

And if you are wondering if I am criticizing the painting because I am angered by its message - trust me, I am not.  It has no message at all.  We do have arabs, and George Soros.  Even a cop - with a mug of beer.  But what is he saying?    

I wanted to show one of his religious pieces just to show how really bad his work is. Obamanation is in essence a cartoon.  But I believe Jon is serious about his religion.  I picked one with Jesus and with a cavalcade of soldiers.  Jesus himself is not the leathery Jewish peasant who lived among the poor; instead he is like a modern day Catholic priest who is wearing his new vestments.  The soldiers themselves (possibly representative of the many ages of war) convey nothing at all except a simplistic idea of men at prayer.

Far more effective was Thomas Eakins who conveyed something of Christ's suffering in his Crucifixion: 

Nor am I arguing against emotion.  The next picture is of Picasso's Guernica.  Not realistic, it uses simplified representations of strong emotion.  It can be understood by anyone:

As an artist (and I still think of myself as one despite my years in business) I love real art, whether great art, or humble but honest.  McNaughton is neither.  

I wanted to close with Michaelangelo's Last Judgement.  It is a powerful evocation of an angry God judging men.  

Few artists can come up to Michaelangelo, but Jon McNaughton does not recognize just how far from great or even good art his terrible images are.  Sadly, Kurt Anderson's interview (which was all about the words attached to images, and not about the light, color or mediocre drawing) suggests that grasping visual meaning is a rare ability - one that many critics do not possess.