A watermelon, viewed from above, casts a greenish shadow on a white table. Two small figures on a putting green are spied from behind a distant tree. A horse with cow-like markings stands in field. Dogs, of course: a Shih Tzu and a Boxer sitting against an electric blue void. A Sheepdog next to a ball. A Corgi and a Lab at awkward, physically impossible angles, splayed out against the ground. And some kind of hound mix, maybe, grey and monstrous, sitting outside the White House, separated from the seat of power by iron bars, staring ambivalently out of frame.
This is the art of the 43rd president.
Gawker has obtained more photographs of George W. Bush's paintings, originally taken from the former president and his family's email accounts by a hacker using the name "Guccifer," and this may be the most interesting batch yet. A mix of landscapes, still lifes, and animal portraits (a subject he returns to time and again) these paintings show a burgeoning, sensitive artist stretching his painterly muscle—toying with perspective, experimenting with color, and giving his work symbolic and thematic heft.
Here is the best of the bunch, and maybe his masterpiece: an odd, even monstrous-looking dog, sitting yards away from the president's former home, but kept away from it by thick iron bars. Unlike most of Bush's dogs, this one looks away from the viewer. What is it thinking? What is it doing? Are the bars the White House fence—or something more sinister?
Here, some kind of canyon, and a watermelon on a bizarrely-angled table:
More odd angles in this painting of two dogs—are they laying down? Resting? Playing?
A golf course landscape places the viewer in an odd, Peeping Tom position watching two putter from behind a tree:
A still life of grapes:
A house painted in a jarring odd, multi-perspective stye:
A black-spotted horse in a field. There is an interesting persistent rightward motion to this painting.
An autumn landscape:
A shaggy dog with ball:
Another sunset—nearly as popular a subject for the artist as dogs:
Yet more dogs: