The empty heart of political correctness

Wishes in the Wind by David Lenz

The above painting is Wishes in the Wind by David Lenz. Until earlier in the year it hung in the Wisconsin Governor's mansion. Governor Walker replaced it and, Wisconsin being Wisconsin, this touched off a controversy. There were charges bandied about that he was being racist for taking the painting down. You can read about it in the Journal Sentinel article Artwork shuffle at governor's mansion raises eyebrows if you're in the mood for some tedium. 

I'm not so much interested in the politics of artwork displays in Wisconsin, but I would like to talk about the painting.

It is done in the style of hyperrealism. It is obviously technically very proficient. When I first read the Journal Sentinel article it took me some time to realize that it was a painting and not a photograph. When I did finally realize it was a painting I spent time marveling over just how well he captured the look of snow and dirty slush. 

Therein lies the problem with the painting -- if one spends more time admiring the technique of painting slush in a gutter than in contemplating the three kids at its core, then perhaps the core of the painting lacks heft?  

The children at the core are simply a PC cliche. The careful gender and ethnic mix and the child-like purity in their wonderment over soap bubbles is exactly the sort of image that dominates advertising in these PC obsessed days. Look through any collection of stock photography and you'll see the same mix of diversity and smiles. The picture evokes nothing. It is, technical considerations aside, banal.

Click to enlarge

Contrast that painting with Norman Rockwell's illustration of childhood and race. On moving day the two groups of siblings approach each other tentatively. Their shared commonality -- the boy's baseball gloves, the girl's pets, and the shyness of them all -- implies that left to their own devices they will become fast friends.

However, an adult viewer of the illustration will know just how much resentment there will be towards the black family in the suburban neighborhood. Balanced against the children's ability to ignore race at their young age, is the fact that adults will likely poison the well with their prejudices. 

It is the power of Rockwell's illustration -- the simple question to the viewer, will you come between these children or will you do the right thing?

Click to enlarge

 If you think Rockwell was too maudlin ever to mean to send such a message, consider his illustration above. It drips with adult menace and racial passion. The four marshals guarding the little girl on the way to school, the splatter from the thrown tomato, the word "nigger" scrawled on the wall. It paints racism as an unmistakably ugly, irrational and violent force. It is a powerful statement made in the days before the bindings of political correctness, by an illustrator many consider a sentimental old fraud.    

I suspect Lenz's Wishes in the Wind was selected by a committee. I suspect that at least once in their meetings the following was said, "we need something to represent the diversity of our State." That's what they got -- a bit of diversified fluff with nicely rendered slush. Paint on canvas can do so much more if you're willing to look at the world instead of slogans.