The "engaged and assertive demeanor" of Obama in his portrait "contradicts — and cosmetically corrects — the impression he often made in office of being philosophically detached from what was going on around him."

"At some level, all portraits are propaganda, political or personal. And what makes this one distinctive is the personal part. [The artist Kehinde] Wiley has set Mr. Obama against — really embedded him in — a bower of what looks like ground cover. From the greenery sprout flowers that have symbolic meaning for the sitter. African blue lilies represent Kenya, his father’s birthplace; jasmine stands for Hawaii, where Mr. Obama himself was born; chrysanthemums, the official flower of Chicago, reference the city where his political career began, and where he met his wife."

Writes the art critic Holland Carter at the NYT, where you can see the portrait, which is kind of interesting, especially if you like your President well embedded in foliage.

Now, the portrait of Michelle Obama, on the other hand — by a different artist, Amy Sherald — is a lot worse. And I'm not saying that because I need a lot of leaves and flowers in official portraits or because it's mostly blue background and huge geometrically patterned skirt. It's that the face is such a small part of the thing and it doesn't look like her.

As Holland Carter puts it:

The dress design, by Michelle Smith, is eye-teasingly complicated: mostly white interrupted by black Op Art-ish blips and patches of striped color suggestive of African textiles. The shape of the dress, rising pyramidally upward, mountain-like, feels as if it were the real subject of the portrait. Mrs. Obama’s face forms the composition’s peak, but could be almost anyone’s face, like a model’s face in a fashion spread. To be honest, I was anticipating — hoping for — a bolder, more incisive image of the strong-voiced person I imagine this former first lady to be, one for whom I could easily envision a continuing political future.