Can you find Satan (again)?
February 9, 2022 11:34 AM   Subscribe

In 2009, years before he would fully debase himself in service of neofascist Trumpist iconography, conservative painter Jon McNaughton graced the internet with a work that he claimed "may truly be the most important new painting of the twenty first century": One Nation Under God. A veritable who's-who of right-wing bugaboos and sacred cows, McNaughton felt compelled to include an interactive canvas to explain the myriad symbols... a gimmick that was soon brilliantly skewered by Shortpacked! creator David Willis. Blithe to criticism, McNaughton would follow up this opus with more Kinkade-meets-Garrison giclée schlock that would embody the conservative psychodrama of the 2010s, including The Forgotten Man, Legacy of Hope, and -- what else? -- NFTs. But is he trolling the left, or the right?
posted by Rhaomi (53 comments total) 16 users marked this as a favorite
 
[Original discussion - Part of #DoublesJubilee]
posted by Rhaomi at 11:34 AM on February 9, 2022


The shortpacked link just says that the domain's for sale. Bit rot? (And the link in the original piece goes to Transformer reviews.)
posted by Spike Glee at 11:41 AM on February 9, 2022 [4 favorites]


Are the former first couple treading on a snake? Sorry, my brain just made a popping sound. Maybe I can look at more of these later.
posted by amanda at 11:47 AM on February 9, 2022


"Hold the Blue Line"

McNaughton's just an exposed nipple away from channeling his inner Tom of Finland.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 11:52 AM on February 9, 2022 [21 favorites]


Well that's embarassing -- fixing bitrot is one of the main points of this month's theme! Here's the correct link via Archive.org.
posted by Rhaomi at 11:55 AM on February 9, 2022 [4 favorites]


It's like Norman Rockwell, if he were a talentless hack.
posted by chavenet at 12:01 PM on February 9, 2022 [2 favorites]


2009 I believe this will be exhibit A in the inevitable Normal People vs Insane Religious Buffoons landmark trial of 2016.

truth but oops
posted by away for regrooving at 12:19 PM on February 9, 2022 [6 favorites]


Even if he thinks he's not serious, he is. He has become what he pretends to be, whether or not he understands that. And for my part, I believe he is, and that his joking is the joking of the anti-Semite, as Sartre wrote about.

Like Ben Garrison, he's a talented draftsman. It's true that both mainstream art is largely progressive and that it had drifted away from the photorealistic at the time he was coming up. But it drifted back, and there was no excuse for him to get in bed with fascists just because they liked to see the blood and soil laid out plainly.

“Conservatives are more divided than the left, in my opinion,” he observes. As evidence, he points out how much backlash he receives any time he includes Abraham Lincoln in a painting. “There’s a good percentage of conservatives who can’t stand the guy.”

If he could just follow that train of thought a little longer, he'd understand what conservatives really are. But then, there's a good chance he has and he does.

(Funny thing -- the left complains that it's disorganized and that the right moves in lockstep, while people on the right complain of the same thing. This is partly because we're all human, and as such, we see the Other as less than human, an undifferentiated mass, while we attribute varied traits and motives to our allies. It's also because it is true of the right, because they have the money. But that's a digression.)
posted by Countess Elena at 12:22 PM on February 9, 2022 [18 favorites]


(Sartre link for the above. I don't mean to say that McNaughton is anti-Semitic, or indeed that he isn't, just that he evinces the same bad-faith approach.)
posted by Countess Elena at 12:27 PM on February 9, 2022 [11 favorites]


I always thought McNaughton's paintings were satire. I liked that version of reality better.
posted by pleem at 12:34 PM on February 9, 2022


I personally prefer my nutty rightwing kitsch more in the style of Jack Chick, but I can't deny that—if I found one of this guy's paintings emblazoned on a commemorative plate, say, in a church basement rummage sale—I'd be awfully tempted to buy it.
posted by Atom Eyes at 12:34 PM on February 9, 2022 [4 favorites]


Man, I wish I could post images from my phone. I've got a few parody memes of this work that are out of sight. Just cannot find them through internet searches...

Mussolini's jutted-jaw ghost laughs!
posted by zerobyproxy at 12:40 PM on February 9, 2022


I prefer this anonymous meme, which appeared briefly after Trump co-opted the eminently co-optable Secret Service + US Park Police to drive protestors out of Lafayette Park for a photo op.
posted by ryanshepard at 12:41 PM on February 9, 2022


Well, I don't know if I'd call him talentless. I certainly can't paint like that.

Although it wouldn't surprise me if we discovered that he's outsourcing the actual painting to a Fiverr sweatshop in China, maybe across the street from where the MAGA hats get made. It would be pretty consistent with other conservative "entrepreneurs".
posted by Kadin2048 at 12:45 PM on February 9, 2022 [10 favorites]


From one of the links:

McNaughton prepared to launch his latest venture — a series of Trump-themed originals published as crypto-based NFTs (non fungible tokens)

This cursed year.
posted by fortitude25 at 12:55 PM on February 9, 2022 [5 favorites]


It's like Norman Rockwell, if he were a talentless hack.

wait, norman rockwell was NOT a talentless hack?
posted by rude.boy at 1:14 PM on February 9, 2022 [1 favorite]


wait, norman rockwell was NOT a talentless hack?

Jon McNaughton is the Thomas Kinkade of Norman Rockwells.

Not a sentence thought I'd be out here uttering but here we are.
posted by mhoye at 1:17 PM on February 9, 2022 [19 favorites]


I always thought McNaughton's paintings were satire.

I thought the same about Ben Garrison's cartoons for a very long time.
posted by clawsoon at 1:56 PM on February 9, 2022 [3 favorites]


I obliged, and he handed me a small, letter-sized canvas. At the center, a distraught Rittenhouse screams, tied to a burning stake, blood dripping from his eyes. Surrounding him are a sea of fists, raised in the air.

“It’s called ‘Peaceful Protest,’” McNaughton says. “Not a lovely painting, but I don’t always do things that I think are gonna sell,” he concludes.
He thinks it wouldn't sell?
posted by clawsoon at 2:01 PM on February 9, 2022 [2 favorites]


I'm way behind on this but jeepers at the fact MLK is absent, only to be represented by a black soldier with KING on his uniform. Shoved the few other black leaders he deigned to remember way in the back too. Augh everything about this is awful and I know that's the whole thing here, but still part of me wants to be in school where I am compelled to tear this thing apart part by part.
posted by GoblinHoney at 2:02 PM on February 9, 2022 [2 favorites]


I wonder how much McNaughton was influenced by Travail of the Flag?

Whoa. That's pretty wild.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 2:04 PM on February 9, 2022 [1 favorite]


wait, norman rockwell was NOT a talentless hack?

He most definitely was not! We were just talking about him here a few weeks ago.
posted by echo target at 2:10 PM on February 9, 2022 [18 favorites]


I've watched videos of McNaughton drawing and explaining his process, and he certainly has a reasonable amount of the core skills. Wherever he's ended up stylistically, he seems to have plateaued and doesn't seem interested in anything but the trolling and dollers, much the same way that Kinkade figured out his schtick and ran with it to the bank.

I find I'm actually kind of depressed by this. If he were a true believer, I could gape and shake my head, as I would if he really were trolling America. As it is, he's just found a gimmick and is milking it, which is what makes him profoundly uninteresting to me, as an artist. It's not hard to imagine someone with a more Banksy perspective doing what McNaughton does, but continually pushing boundaries--the fact that McNaughton won't release the Rittenhouse painting means, AFAICT, he just doesn't think it'll sell.

I guess I'm saying that, love him or hate him, I'd have more respect for him if he actually meant it.
posted by fatbird at 2:14 PM on February 9, 2022 [1 favorite]


"I wish You could live a Year in Boston, hear their Divines, read their publications, especially the Repository. You would see how spiritual Tyranny and ecclesiastical Domination are beginning in our Country: at least struggling for birth..."

-John Adams
posted by clavdivs at 2:16 PM on February 9, 2022 [3 favorites]


my God, it's like Doom scrolling through an invented history.
posted by clavdivs at 2:39 PM on February 9, 2022 [1 favorite]


I am fascinated by McNaughton. It's partly because he rides the line between 'unintentionally-funny' and 'intentionally funny'—see John Bolton's face in this one, which cracks me up every time I see it; it is almost the Platonic ideal of John Bolton.

TBH the term 'iconography' is apt, he's not really a propagandist because he's not insightful enough or purposeful, the closest genre he works to is religious icons in the Orthodox tradition (in which every element has a meaning, and the faithful use them as instructional and devotional images).
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 2:43 PM on February 9, 2022 [8 favorites]


We were shopping for landscape materials here in Tucson. One place we were looking at had a really good selection of paver blocks. We went into the office to get a quote. And then we saw it. A large framed copy of that forgotten man painting, set under lighting made for it, with US flags on stands on both sides. We turned and left without a word.
posted by azpenguin at 2:44 PM on February 9, 2022 [9 favorites]


Mod note: One Nation Under God (Interactive):
She is pointing at the mother with the disabled child and she is saying, "I want to keep my baby."

Umm...to me it looks more like the pregnant woman is pointing at the Supreme Court Judge sic and telling him her uterus is her business and he's sad about it.

Or possibly doing some Madonna cosplay without committing to the lewk.
posted by kirkaracha (staff) at 2:45 PM on February 9, 2022


The thing that cracks me up about McNaughton (he was a guilty pleasure follow on Twitter until he banned me for dragging one of his paintings) is his Art Appreciation 101 overreliance on symbolism. It's on stark display in the interactive version of "One Nation Under God", where he overexplains to the rubes the significance of Christ's right foot forward, the Supreme Court justice's watch displaying 11:59, so-and-so wearing purple. There's no mystery and there's nothing open to subjective interpretation -- it's all an overt billboard for the narrow and regressive politics he peddles.
posted by vverse23 at 3:25 PM on February 9, 2022 [4 favorites]


If anyone is wondering what "mainstream" Mormon political culture looks like, this is it to the hilt. Everything from literal worship of the constitution to love of kitschy art.*

McNaughton's Jesus look vaguely familiar at all? It's because this is what all Mormons think Jesus looks like.

What really made me spit Postum all over my keyboard, though, was the "college student" in One Nation Under God who is carrying The 5000 Year Leap by that certified nut, Cleon Skousen.

This guy really knows his audience - whether it's because he really believes this stuff or he just knows exactly what people are going to sucker in to.

* I hasten to add that not all Mormons are on board with all this stuff, but it is for certain the default viewpoint about things political, and many specifics in his little sermons-in-a-painting are the exact sorts of things you're likely to hear over the pulpit or in any Sunday School lesson, if you were to show up at a random church building anywhere in the Mormon corridor, for sure.
posted by flug at 3:25 PM on February 9, 2022 [8 favorites]


he just knows exactly what people are going to sucker in to

I mean, reading the press release about the NFTs and the Parler connection, he does seem to understand how to target this grift.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 3:44 PM on February 9, 2022 [2 favorites]


Mormons! Keeping Jesus Whiter and Brighter Since 1830 One Nation is such a beautiful depiction of White People, perfect in every way but for a missing pickup truck draped with the Confederate flag. Rumors are that White Jesus has lived in the town of Mormonville since 1830, since segregation continues to be alive and well there.

The Church has had an ongoing problem with its racist legacy seeping into public and artistic works, as clearly depicted in McNaughton's recent loveletter, One Nation Under God, and this absolute banger, The Empowered Man. Joseph Smith and Brigham Young declared that Black folks were inferior because of the "curse of Cain." Mormon doctrine states that God marked Cain with blackness and cursed him so he would forever be persecuted. Several other teachings in the Book of Mormon speak of black skin as vile and evil and white skin as "pure and delightsome." The scriptures imply God would darken the skin of people who fell out of his favor and lighten that of those who pleased him.
posted by Schadenfreude at 4:23 PM on February 9, 2022 [3 favorites]


But is he trolling the left, or the right?

Jesus Fucking Christ, that essay title is itself a massive fucking troll, since it's REALLY REALLY REALLY OBVIOUS that McNaughton is a massive right-wing nutjob and the very essence of being right-wing these days is trolling the left.

I mean, I guess you gotta hand it to them* for getting all meta about trolling the libs.

*Editor's note: You do not, in fact, gotta hand it to them. Fucking fuckers.
posted by soundguy99 at 4:31 PM on February 9, 2022 [17 favorites]


Bleccch - there are so many good artists doing amazing work - and then there is rubbish like this.

I want to call it "kitsch" but even that overstates the quality of the aesthetic. Koons and McNaughton are mining the same seam of whatever this is.
posted by Barbara Spitzer at 5:23 PM on February 9, 2022


And I thought the editorial cartoonist for The Onion had already plumbed the depths of painfully heavyhanded artistic symbolism. This is so much worse.

(I'm pretty sure The Onion's cartoons are satire, but with Poe's Law it's sometimes hard to tell)
posted by RonButNotStupid at 6:04 PM on February 9, 2022 [2 favorites]


Alternate titles for this one, Expose The Truth:

1.) DJT, Aspiring Ophthalmologist

2.) "If You Need Me, I'll Be Burning FBI Directors With A Magnifying Glass On The Driveway"

3.) "My God. It's Full Of Hairs!"
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 6:11 PM on February 9, 2022


So does he go back and paint over those who fall out of favor?
posted by MonkeyToes at 6:26 PM on February 9, 2022 [7 favorites]


Bush looks blurry.
posted by clavdivs at 6:55 PM on February 9, 2022


I wonder how much McNaughton was influenced by Travail of the Flag?

Whoa. Is that what happens when social conservatives take LSD?
posted by Kadin2048 at 8:07 PM on February 9, 2022 [3 favorites]


I'm pretty sure I saw an Andy Thomas painting at a breakfast diner in Beaufort SC that makes everyone stand up and say the Pledge of Allegiance at least once a day. The (added?) caption was somewhat critical of Barack Obama, if you can believe it.
posted by credulous at 8:29 PM on February 9, 2022


Yes, but why is Jesus depicted as white? He was Aramaic, yes?
posted by metametamind at 9:49 PM on February 9, 2022


This falls squarely into "can't look away" territory.

What does he do every time some right-wing profile falls out of favour with the masses? I noticed several paintings with Mike Pence in them, for example, but they prints are still available for purchase.
posted by Harald74 at 2:15 AM on February 10, 2022


Apparently I answered the question myself, he just leaves the prints up for purchase and probably collects a few dollars off the "long tail".
posted by Harald74 at 2:18 AM on February 10, 2022


But is he trolling the left, or the right?

Grifting the right by trolling the left, which is standard practice on the right these days.
posted by acb at 2:54 AM on February 10, 2022 [7 favorites]


It's okay, but sharpwriter on deviantart gives us Abe Lincoln riding a bear and holding an M4(ish gun) with THE EMANCIPATOR proudly emblazoned on it as well as George W. skydiving while riding a shark and many other delights
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 3:40 AM on February 10, 2022 [1 favorite]


I'm partial to Obama with lightsabers myself.

(Or did I just dream that one?)
posted by The Monster at the End of this Thread at 6:01 AM on February 10, 2022


Nope, Lightsaber Obama is apparently a thing, but it's more of a Photoshop Battles thing than an oil painting thing. But if you wanted a subject for an oil painting, you could certainly do a lot worse.
posted by Kadin2048 at 8:28 AM on February 10, 2022


Clearly he's a Sith in that our hatred seems to make him stronger and he only deals in absolutes.

Anyway, he's no different than people who sell MAGA hats or Trump teddy bears or Confederate flag blankets. I think a lot of people are bothered that someone who appears to have some artistic skill and intelligence is using those things for profit and enjoys kissing up to the absolute worst people. But that's not really new. Having talent doesn't make you a better person.

What interests me is whether his propaganda really does much to further the right-wing message, or whether it's just tat that hangs in right-wing homes, preaching to the converted. In which case every dollar that goes to him might less harmful than dollars donated to right-wing candidates.
posted by emjaybee at 8:28 AM on February 10, 2022 [1 favorite]


Cringe: The Painting

Even if you believe as he does, it is so incredibly bereft of any dignity that I almost have to appreciate it - though emphatically not from any artistic perspective.
posted by hoborg at 11:57 AM on February 10, 2022


apropo of double month.

"One man is replacing guns with sex toys in photos of GOP politicians. That man is Matt Haughey."

here is the link.

and a little suggestion.
posted by clavdivs at 1:08 PM on February 10, 2022 [5 favorites]


that art fuckin sucks!
posted by wibari at 10:28 PM on February 10, 2022


"I always thought McNaughton's paintings were satire. I liked that version of reality better."

It's settled then, I cannot buy 'Democrats Playing Poker' in good conscience.
posted by Selena777 at 7:31 AM on February 11, 2022


but why is Jesus depicted as white? He was Aramaic, yes?

You already know the answer to that question
posted by Dr. Twist at 7:49 AM on February 11, 2022 [3 favorites]


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