Here is one way to look at the portraits of Barack and Michelle: If you are only familiar with classical music, then jazz is going to sound mighty strange. But if you listen to classical and jazz treatments of the same song, you begin to discern the similarities and the differences, and can appreciate that both are valid interpretations of the same reality.
Let's say that the portrait paintings that most of us have seen in museums, in galleries, in historic homes, in courthouses and state capitols, are classical in nature; that is, to the greatest extent that the artist is capable, they are realistic interpretations of the likeness of the subject of the painting, and their quality is judged on how readily the subject can be identified.
A jazz interpretation, however, while similar in essence, might be very different in execution. When people say "It doesn't look like Michelle," they are referring to the lack of classical familiarity. What about a jazz interpretation, though, as when a jazz musician riffs on a familiar musical theme? Does this portrait communicate something about its subject on a different level than physical likeness? Can you see a truer likeness of Michelle in this painting than in a portrait that looks like a photograph, in the same way that Van Gogh's self-portrait looked very little like him, and at the same time, very much like him? Does the painting make you say, "Now that is Michelle," even more than a photograph of Michelle would?
There are no morals more relative than conservative morals, and no hypocrisy quite like conservative hypocrisy.
