Althouse: Would you hang a portrait of yourself in your house?

June 15, 2010

Would you hang a portrait of yourself in your house?

Even if it were painted by a convicted murderer?

24 comments:

Fred4Pres said...: Yes. Eric has some talent. Too bad he murdered his parents and threw his own life away in the process. But that is an interesting portrait, even if the subject is Kathy Griffin.

But I draw the line at John Wayne Gacy clown pictures. Those are just creepy.; 6/15/10, 11:26 AM
Unknown said...: when the fame monster eats your soul anything goes.; 6/15/10, 11:26 AM
Fred4Pres said...: These creep me out too and he was a nice guy.; 6/15/10, 11:27 AM
Methadras said...: I hate clowns. I really do. That being said, would it be bad to say that the portrait looks better than the original?; 6/15/10, 11:30 AM
KCFleming said...: The video is down.

Convicted?
So the painter's not Van der Sloot or Ted Kennedy.; 6/15/10, 11:32 AM
William said...: I have seen pictures drawn by Eisenhower and Churchill. Hitler had more talent. Keep that in mind the next time some great artist preaches to you about politics.; 6/15/10, 12:12 PM
Sigivald said...: If it was an awesome portrait, yes.

The painter's identity doesn't affect that much.; 6/15/10, 12:21 PM
Kev said...: (the other kev)

Did he murder before or after painting her portrait? If it's the latter, he may have a basis for appeal.; 6/15/10, 12:39 PM
Ron said...: My friends think that David's painting of Napoleon crossing the Alps is a portrait of me...; 6/15/10, 12:40 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: No, because the only artist I could afford to hire would be myself, and I'm not actually an artist, and if I were an artist, I wouldn't draw myself, and if I did draw myself, the drawing would be bad.

Also, I am not a murderer.; 6/15/10, 12:47 PM
Unknown said...: If it was a good portrait, yes and yes.

William said...

I have seen pictures drawn by Eisenhower and Churchill. Hitler had more talent. Keep that in mind the next time some great artist preaches to you about politics.

Al was good at buildings and not much else. Didn't know Ike painted, but heard about Winnie, although I've never seen any of his work. Al's stuff struck me as cold, the sort of work a draftsman might do.; 6/15/10, 12:54 PM
Robert G. said...: My parents had their wedding portraits made into paintings by a hard timer that was locked up in the California prison in which my Dad's mother worked as a guard. Not sure if this inmate was a killer (although I know the Manson girls were incarcerated at that same facility eventually), but she made some pretty good images of my folks and my mom's parents. The fact that the artist was a prisoner was never more than just an interesting piece of family trivia and was never creepy the way a Gacy painting might be.; 6/15/10, 1:02 PM
Steven said...: Sure, I'd hang a portrait of myself in my house. About six minutes after I became a hereditary peer.; 6/15/10, 1:08 PM
TMink said...: I do not have portraits of myself in my house.

I have a mirror.

Trey; 6/15/10, 1:08 PM
traditionalguy said...: I love those floor to ceiling (less about 2 feet) portraits of the Rich and Powerful that were done in the late 1800's for their homes entrance foyers as a proclamation of their greatness. Portrait painting was then a great way to make a good living off those rich families. Who the painter was was not at all important. I had a great, great grandfather who did that, and he went on to have a sculpture of himself made and put atop his mausoleum in Oakland Cemetary. His showing off worked since a picture of it is usually in the photo section of books on Atlanta history.; 6/15/10, 1:14 PM
former law student said...: Note that of the classical reasons for punishment: deterrence, rehabilitation, and retribution. only retribution motivates the Menendezes' punishment. Multiple life sentences preclude the possibility of rehabilitation, while people who kill their parents generally must stop at two.; 6/15/10, 1:19 PM
former law student said...: About six minutes after I became a hereditary peer.

I, in fact, am a hereditary peer.

I pee.
My dad peed.
His dad peed.
And so on.; 6/15/10, 1:20 PM
Robert Cook said...: "...if I were an artist, I wouldn't draw myself...."

Actually, you probably would. Artists make self-portraits as a matter of course, for many reasons, but among the more common is that it provides good practice at drawing faces, parts of faces, and capturing likenessess, (i.e., it helps in developing and evaluating one's increasing accuracy in one's draughtsmanship). The artist is always available to pose, and he or she doesn't have to pay a model or deal with the model's schedule or moods, (well...maybe, maybe not).

As to hanging a portrait of oneself in one's own home as regular practice...why not? This is the reason most portraits are painted to begin with.; 6/15/10, 2:10 PM
Titus said...: I saw the Joan River doc and it really is very good.; 6/15/10, 2:11 PM
Titus said...: Gays like Kathy Griffin; 6/15/10, 2:12 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: I don't think I'd like passing a large picture of myself in the house everyday. I put this picture in my office. I am not related to him. I should make that my avatar on Blogger.

I would hang portraits of the kids in the house, but I probably wouldn't hire murderers to paint them.; 6/15/10, 4:28 PM
PatHMV said...: How does the sentence not serve the purpose of deterrence, FLS? The fact that they are well-known to be serving life sentences for killing their parents is likely to deter at least SOMEBODY from committing a similar crime.

And who's to say that the brothers would ONLY ever desire to kill their parents, and not anybody else? The fact is that they disliked 2 people and resolved their issues with them by killing them. What happens if they have issues with somebody else in the future?

Murderers deserve the death penalty or life imprisonment, absent truly exceptional circumstances.

And I, for one, find it distasteful when the likes of Kathy Griffin turn murder into grist for cheap TV conversation fodder.; 6/15/10, 9:27 PM
Kev said...: I sort of have a portrait of myself in my house; it's a work done by a student at the college where I teach. She took a picture of my playing my saxophone and then turned that picture into a sort of silk-screen portrait (you can see a shrunken version as my avatar here on Blogger). It's about the size of a large postcard, done on some sort of paperboard, so it's not "hanging" from anywhere, but standing up in a bookcase. And the other pictures in there are of other family members, so as not to seem narcissistic.

So far as I know, the artist isn't a murderer (would that have been a "murderess" in the old days?), but I'd probably keep it displayed anyway, since she was (AFAIK) a fine, upstanding citizen when she did the project.

wv: corninism. A cult of personality surrounding one of my Senators from Texas?; 6/15/10, 11:17 PM
Kev said...: And I see that Blogger has chosen to display my aforementioned avatar in a way that chops off my head. D'oh!; 6/15/10, 11:18 PM