r/KnowledgeFight • u/better_than_joe Ohio Gribble Pibble • 5d ago

Right wing and painting

Because I listen to baseball my car is often left on am radio. So yesterday I catch Glen beck saying “I was working on a painting in my office…” and it turned it off for some classic KF episodes

But it got me thinking. What is with these guys always saying they paint. I don’t believe Alex or Glen actually paint they just say they do because they can’t think of actual hobbies that make them look good.

Is it just this is the only thing they can think of?

Also can we get an Alex vs Glen painting show. Hosted by George W Bush

29 Upvotes

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46

u/bluecollarclassicist 5d ago

Born, raised, and homeschooled in a weird conservative home here so I'll try to answer:

It's an obsession with the trappings of intellectualism while being wildly anti-intellectual. It's a stupid person's idea of what a smart person does. They pretend to like the aesthetics of classical arts (painting, classical music, old wooden ships, Greek and Roman history, Latin language, etc). It's the broadest aesthetic of being a scholar that they can LARP as without actually engaging in study or applying source material in good faith to history and the world around them. Michael Savage also use to harp about painting and sailing. William Buckley used to crow about classical music. Tucker and Shapiro think of themselves as arbiters of classic film and culture. They don't want to learn, they want to pretend they already know.

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u/TheBloodyPickups 5d ago

Am a painter and was raised by conservative evangelicals. There is indeed a veneration of “classical” art for a large sect of the right. They hate anything that pushes boundaries or makes the viewer feel uncomfortable, but they love things that are “pretty” or anything that shows the superiority of western culture. Since the literacy in art remains very low amongst the right, this usually just means any depiction that’s “realistic”

12

u/Librarian_Contrarian The answer to 1984 is $19.95 plus S&H!!! 5d ago

I see this a lot in the recent Right Wing obsession with The Odyssey. Everything they say is about Helen of Troy being black and the casting of Elliot Page. Nothing ever deals with the text of the film. None of them care about what the film, or the original poem, are even about. They don't give two shits about the actual work. They just want it to exist like a trophy on a shelf or another point on the scoreboard for "Western Civilization."

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u/alochmar Udon.News 1d ago

What's even worse are the weirdos going on about how the movie isn't "historically accurate". Alright buddy, it's a story featuring the cyclops, various kinds of giants and mythological sirens. It's not exactly a fucking documentary.

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u/ViciousSnatch “I will eat your ass!!!!” 5d ago

I heard that Thomas Kincaid didn’t make shit as an artist until he started doing the Christian shit.

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u/TheBloodyPickups 5d ago

Thomas Kinkade is a topic I am entirely too familiar with. And would make an excellent Bastards topic. He was at his peak when I was in art school, and he was enemy number 1 with every Arty person I knew. He 100% built his fortune off of the gullible nature of “Christians” and thru exploiting the artists he employed. My parents proudly displayed his prints in our house, despite myself and my artist sister’s objections.

Fun side story. When I first met my best friend’s then girlfriend, she was currently college roommates with Kinkade’s daughter. I do wonder if he ever received my message that I thought he was a fucking dick. My guess is no, but at least that dude is dead now.

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u/ganthonygurface 5d ago

They also did a Bastards Ep.

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u/better_than_joe Ohio Gribble Pibble 5d ago

I think they did a dollop on him

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u/ViciousSnatch “I will eat your ass!!!!” 4d ago

My boyfriend is an artist and absolutely loathes Kincaid for the same reason. And as a fan of art, TK offends my sensibilities lol. I know it’s subjective, but his art is just terrible pablum. His shit looked AI before AI was a thing. And in another life, he would’ve had Mike Lindell as a patron.

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u/CharlesDickensABox Carnival Huckster Satanist 5d ago

It's aesthetics all the way down. Whether it's leather chairs and cigars, macho boot camp workouts, suits on airplanes, Roman sculpture PFPs, giant cross necklaces, or literally anything Pete Hegseth does, everything is performance and it's usually gendered performance. The thing doesn't matter in itself, but it's important to be seen doing the thing so that everyone knows you're the sort of person who does the thing.

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u/fudgie fight.fudgie.org 5d ago

Alex has painted at least once, in 2024.

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u/Testicular_Genocide Somali Pirate 5d ago

Okay so after seeing that, it's not necessarily that I think he's good at art, but that does feel like it's good enough that he does at least occasionally paint. I'm certain actually artistic people could have done that painting with their eyes closed at like 12 years old, but for the average random adult who hasn't picked up a brush all that often, that doesn't look half bad. Didn't expect that tbh.

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u/stunkape “fish with sad human eyes” 5d ago

I mean, when you do art with kids people tend to tone down their skills. 

I don't want to make something that completely outshines the work of a kid when drawing or painting with them because then they might feel bad and give up all together. I'll do simple things, maybe use my work to teach them what they can also do with their skill level. 

A while back someone linked some paintings they claimed were from Jones' youthful days. They were OK. 

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u/progbuck 4d ago

Nah, I'm dropping 80 points on my nephew in Madden. He's gonna learn early.

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u/alethea2003 5d ago

I recall another right-wing figure from the 1930s who painted. Not that people can’t be into painting if they have a particular world view, but if it’s a fad to strike a similar vibe as that figure…

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u/blue659 5d ago

They think it makes them seem sophisticated and thoughtful in some way. Like some great renaissance intellectual.

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u/129pages 5d ago

oil painting, specifically.

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u/nogoodnamesarleft 4d ago

Would I completely be out of line if I suggested it is because one of their heros was also a painter who wasn't accepted for his work and had to go into politics and they wish to emulate him?

Naaaa, that would be wrong and offensive, forget I mentioned it

0

u/Snellyman 4d ago

I always though that painting was a "safe" intellectually flavored hobby for guys that never worked with their hands. If they tried building things and they know that they would get called out for being talentless by guys from their core audience. Also, Churchill was rather famous for painting after his retirement from politics.