I decided to include into my personal art gallery the smartest and greatest looking portraits of several American presidents. I was inspired by a seriousness of colors and truly unique characters of this portraits. I was searching through the whole Google Art Project and while some portraits of American presidents that I found looked too colorful and some even silly, these portraits represents wit and straightness of people who ruled over the U.S.; they represent something that modern politicians have a lack of. If you look at each portrait, the first artistic details you can see are toughness and sharpness of faces. These are responsible and respected men who well known all over the world for the marks they made in our history.
George Washington (Lansdowne Portrait), Gilbert Stuart, 1796, From the collection of: Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery
The first portrait is obviously the portrait of the first president of the United States. As we see on this portrait, George Washington is holding a sword in his left hand which makes him a leader.
James Madison, John Vanderlyn, 1816, From the collection of: The White House
Portrait of James Madison is mostly in dark colors. We see emotionless face and accurate haircut of a man who wear mostly black color clothes. This style of drawing is very popular for some portraits.
William McKinley, Harriet Anderson Stubbs Murphy, 1902, From the collection of: The White House
William McKinley was 25th president of the USA. Portrait was drawn in dark colors, the same is previous. Sadly he was killed before finishing his term. He holds small paper and glasses in his hands.
Abraham Lincoln, George P.A. Healy, 1869, From the collection of: The White House
Abraham Lincoln, in his suit, sitting on the chair with a thinking mood. As all previous portraits, this was drawn using black and red colors. It was done to match a serious mood of the art work.
William Henry Harrison, James Reid Lambdin, 1835, From the collection of: The White House
This is the darkest and the simplest looking portrait out of all in my gallery. No colors except white and black and no objects except the straight president's face in the center of the painting.
Franklin Pierce, George P.A. Healy, 1858, From the collection of: The White House
The portrait of Franklin Pierce is a lot brighter than few previous once. This painting reminds the portrait of George Washington where we also could see some objects besides a face of a president.
Chester Alan Arthur, Daniel Huntington, 1885, From the collection of: The White House
The same as George Washington's portrait, the portrait of Chester Alan Arthur contains columns on the background. The president is at standing position wearing a long coat and the suit under the coat.
Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Daniel Huntington, 1884, From the collection of: The White House
Some faces in my collection of portraits are turned directly at the painter and some little bit aside. Hayes's face is looking directly at the painter. One of Hayes's hands is placed on some papers.
Credits: All media
This user gallery has been created by an independent third party and may not represent the views of the institutions whose collections include the featured works or of Google Arts & Culture.
