Has Barack Obama become a flower child? His new presidential portrait, which is over seven feet high, depicts him on a chair staring ahead somewhat pensively as he’s framed by various flowers that reference Kenya, Hawaii and Chicago. It’s a fitting backdrop to a president who not only embodied the multi-cultural aspirations of America, but also wanted to be seen as a meditative fellow. His adversaries may well conclude that the flowers out him as what they viewed him as all along—a not-so-closet leftist. Meanwhile, his wife Michelle looks serene in a capacious, flowing gown that drapes to the floor.
The question hovering over the portraits, though, is whether they were worth the bother. They aren’t anodyne—the heroic mode that Donald Trump favours is nowhere in evidence. But there isn’t anything avant-garde about them either. Much like the Obama presidency, they appear to offer more change than they actually do.
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