Monday, January 22, 2007
News Carter as Kennedy
Posted by Web Editor on Mon, Jan 22, 2007 at 11:28 PM
In 1974, then-Georgia Gov. Jimmy Carter unveiled a stunning painting of Martin Luther King Jr. in the state Capitol.
But has anyone looked lately at the portrait of Carter that hangs in the state House?
I don't mean the statue on the Capitol grounds. I'm talking about the painting inside, behind the lieutenant governor's office.
It's a study in hero worship so intense that the real-life features of the subject have been discarded as irrelevant, his individuality replaced utterly with the face of an earlier Democratic Party icon.
The artist was apparently laboring under the assumption -- or the influence of some kind of subconscious secular hagiography -- that if he painted a white-haired likeness of John F. Kennedy and called it "Jimmy Carter," some of the beloved, bankable JFK mystique would be transferred, and the viewer would be forced to remark on the extraordinary good fortune of the state and country to have produced another Kennedy.
Nice try.
This is not Carter.
-- Max Pizarro
Comments (1)
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I think the Time "Man of the Year" cover that Carter got early on in his time as governor was also JFK-like. No doubt, this along with the Kennedys' resentment of Miss Lillian being compared to Rose Kennedy probably contributed to the animosity between the Carters and Kennedys. Oh, and the fact that Carter became president and Teddy didn't.
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