When Art Imitates Life?

Jon McNaughton's Painting of Barack Obama Burning the Constitution

Jon McNaughton has painted another thought proving work of art titled, One Nation Under Socialism.  This time he has directly swiped his paint brush at Barack Hussein Obama.  Some would say it was an unjust backhanded stroke.  So, does art imitate life or, according to Oscar Wilde, “Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life.”

The philosophical debate between mimesis and anti-mimesis, which Wilde set out in his anti-mimesis belief in his 1889 essay The Decay of Lying, becomes a moot point when the emotion evoked by an artist’s rendering of a particular subject is much louder than a merely colorful palette.  McNaughton doesn’t choose to depict lovely flower arrangements to draw ooh’s and ah’s.  He choose’s a larger, sometimes controversial, canvass for purposes only the artist could explain, which he does on his website.  However, like many artists, he may allow the work to speak for itself and simply sit back and watch the fireworks.

As with many of his other works, he has posted a video on YouTube, One Nation Under Socialism and shares some of his thoughts.

Whether you like his work or not, or believe he is depicting a self-evident truth or even think he is lying about a beloved President, he is definitely making a larger statement.  If his larger statement is that the gang of 535, called Congress, and the Obama administration (and prior administrations) are systematically trashing the Constitution – then we couldn’t agree with him more.

What his painting doesn’t show, . . . . . is who lit the match?  Or better still, how the Constitution will be saved.

These are the times for our Constitution.