Drowning in Lies, Surrounded by Fake
As if we needed yet another example of Trump’s pathological lying, I feel compelled to bring this one up because it was easily disproved and stands as a remarkable example of the magnitude of Trump’s lies for everyone to see on national television.
Now, stay with me here; this is Renoir’s Two Sisters on the Terrace, painted in 1881 and bequeathed from the estate of Mrs. Lewis Larned (Annie Swan) Coburn to the Art Institute of Chicago in 1933. It has been in the Institute’s permanent collection since, traveling the world, loaned to museums for exhibitions.
Now looky here; over Pence’s shoulder during a national television interview in Trump Tower shortly after the election is…wait for it…Renoir’s Two Sisters hanging right there on the wall. How can that be? Yes, that’s right; Trump the “billionaire” has a counterfeit painting right there in his home and shown on national television.
Likewise, nude model Melania Trump used the fake Renoir as a backdrop during a television interview with Gretta Van Susteren:
Oh, but it gets better; it gets a lot better. Is he just ignorant enough to think he bought a masterpiece when he actually bought a fake? Does he expect people to not know the difference? Or just he not care? Like so many issues surrounding the dumpster fire of the Trump administration, the answer is not that simple. Vanity Fair reported a story about the painting this week in an interview with Tim O’Brian, who recently published TrumpNation, a biography of his orangeness. O’Brian recalled two conversations with Trump years ago when he rode on his plane for an interview. The fake Renoir was hanging on the wall of Trump’s plane. He asked Trump if it was an original, to which Trump answered yes. O’Brien corrected him that it’s not real since the actual painting is owned by the Art Institute of Chicago. O’Brien reports that Trump simply argued that this was the original. O’Brien dropped the subject. More telling, the very next day when they boarded the plane again, Trump said, “You know, that’s an original Renoir”. Wisely, O’Brien chose to just let it go.
The torrent of lies that issues forth from Trump’s mouth is simply not normal. It’s also exhausting to have to keep pointing out those lies, but it is something we must continue to do. When the lie is so easily debunked it mandatory that we point out such outrageous falsehood.
Just like his cheating at golf, erecting fake historical markers, selling cheap Made in China clothing, and swindling partners, investors, and contractors, displaying fake paintings as original opens a window into Trump’s soul. The problem, of course, is that when you look through that window, there is no soul to see.
But he is the biggest and best cheater of all time. The #1 conman that ever was.
1I have some Rembrandt Peales and a couple of other famous pictures in my apartment. You don’t need a Billion $, either:
https://www.1st-art-gallery.com/Pierre-Auguste-Renoir/Pierre-Auguste-Renoir-oil-paintings.html
2Now El Jefe, you certainly don’t expect even a fleeting grasp of reality from a guy that comb spreads that conglomeration of his and tells people it’s his ‘real’ hair.
3He may not be lying… He may simply be deluded. Dementia. Just sayin’.
4This reminds me of an episode from “The Addams Family” where Gomez and Morticia want an art teacher for his mother so they put a call through to Paris and ask to speak with Picasso. The operator gives them Sam Picasso, who’s almost in the act of hanging himself in desperation because he’s such a hack painter. He gladly accepts their invitation. Maybe Trump’s painting was done by Billy Bob Renoir and Trump is too dumb to know the difference.
5To quote something I just read, “Tillerson is wrong. Trump isn’t smart enough to be a moron.”
6Welcome El Jefe to the world of psycho narcissism! As the greatest of greatest, everything, I repeat, EVERYTHING Trump says or does is to get praise or attention and to prove he is the greatest.. Lies, right or wrong, truth, honesty, threats, praise, etc. are all freely spewed to justify his greatness.
7And are HIS truth at the moment.
Hey wait I have that original Renoir in my house too….He is such a jerk, anyone else would say ” it is a copy very nice though?” I think he is just delusional…so very sad for us. Believe me someone should take an inventory of the white house now before things start to go missing. I would not put it past trump!
8I’m with BarbinDC. To put things in perspective, I own several nice prints of my favorite famous paintings. I don’t think that makes me a liar. I also doubt any thoughtful person would believe Trump would own the original. I think it’s pretty clear that he pi$$ed away (sorry mamma) his daddy’s fortune long ago and is now essentially bankrupt.
9And Mel was a virgin when they got married.
*giggling now*
10When I was seven, I did a watercolor in art class in second grade. It was a woman on a sofa, and I signed it “Renoir.” My mother, of blessed memory, had several Renoir reproductions, including the one Trumplethinskin insists is the original. My watercolor was more of a Renoir original than that; at least I painted it myself.
11A French painting? Not proudly displaying an American artist in his home, like Norman Rockwell? And why take the chance he has to say a name he can’t correctly pronounce?
12As expected, the window into The Hollow Man’s soul reveals he is empty.
13Traitor trump is a phony, a fake. Not as though he didn’t tell everyone. Unfortunately he’s also the worst kind of bully. He strips millions of healthcare “because he can”. He despises the people of Puerto Rico. He needs to be removed from office and from humanity.
14The painting of Trump’s soul was rendered by Edward Munch.
15That supercilious groping insignificant piece of protoplasm needs to be surrounded, rounded up, neutered then delivered to Bob Mueller. Pictures? He wants pictures? OK Let’s decorate a cozy 6×8 cell for Donnie with a montage he should love – pictures of himself.
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0TwUfkHRXkQ/WeEySimUNxI/AAAAAAABrUE/w3n6WbWG16kpLJjrbKWcdTlAHUs3OECugCLcBGAs/s1600/2%2Bjim%2Bmorin.png
16There are two possibilities here. One is that he knows it’s a lie and goes ahead and lies anyway. That’s bad. The second is that he actually believes his own bull stuff (sorry, Momma). That’s bad.
I’m not sure what’s worse. The first implies that his lying comes so easily because he’s a psychopath. I can believe that. The second implies he has no connection to reality, and I can believe that, too. I can also believe both simultaneously. Either way (or both) this sucker scares me from the top of my pointy head down to the soles of my feet.
I grieve for America and the strangulation we are witnessing of her ideals. I also grieve for the natural world.
17Anything that comes out of that man’s mouth is a lie until proven otherwise. If it’s a statement about how wonderful and powerful he is, it needs at least three independent and reliable confirmations. Anybody avowedly GOP is not considered reliable for this purpose and quite possibly for many other purposes.
18Donald Trump is all illusion and no substance. If he bought his paintings because he thought they were real, he got taken, very badly indeed, paying the penalty for not doing the proper research. If he bought them knowing they were copies, he’s lying so people will think he’s richer and/or more cultured than he is. Maybe he’s a narcissist; maybe he’s a sociopath. Neither one should be President of the United States. I hope Bob Mueller can fix that, so we can start rebuilding what Trump and his cronies have destroyed.
19That Other Jean:
20Matt Taibbi had a great piece in Rolling Stone last month called the Madness of Donald Trump. Evidently there’s some kinda document attesting to Donnie’s serious mental illness, signed by 62,000 mental health care professionals. And at least some of them think it’s something called malignant narcissism.
Seeing as how El Trumpo assigns the term “fake” on everything that torments him, we ALL know that whatever he classifies as fake, is his way of trying to convince everyone that he is NOT the major fake in the room!
21We ALL know he is the biggest fake around!!
Paid full price for it, too.
22Since 1964 the American Psychiatric Association has held to the Goldwater Rule that they don’t comment on the mental health of public figures whom they haven’t personally evaluated. But in July of this year, the Association let its 3500 members know that Trump was so different from anything they’d seen in the White House before that they were allowed to let it rip.
https://www.statnews.com/2017/07/25/psychiatry-goldwater-rule-trump/
23Changes in Trump’s unscripted speaking over several decades suggest cognitive decline:
https://www.statnews.com/2017/05/23/donald-trump-speaking-style-interviews/
24Sooo, a few things and it’s long so apologies….
25It’d be very interesting to know when this copy was acquired and by who actually. Remember when impressionist and post-impressionist masterpieces really started taking off to stratospheric prices in the late 1980s? It was mind-blowing as the auction prices tripled or quadrupled seemingly overnight. At that times uber-wealthy Japanese moguls were snatching up a lot of them. And as with a lot of playthings for the 1% set, it became a ‘keeping up with the super-rich Jones game’. It was also at this time that art became something to acquire not so much because one loved and wanted it but as an investment like stocks, bonds, and real estate. Now then, late 80s, who was pushing himself on the scene in NYC, one of the top cities for art auctions? Who was he married to at the time?
Nowadays, most rich people buy art as an investment, not particularly because they know, understand, or love it. Or they buy to look hip and cool. These people hire consultants to do the searching for them. With the rich folks financial approval, the consultants make the payments and arrange the shipments and final hanging/placement in a home or business place. Pretty sure these consultants would never suggest copies to their clients as they’d be mocked out of the biz.
Art copies have always been sold. Since at least the 18th/19th century many people, many Americans in fact, making their ‘grand tour’ of Europe brought home masterfully rendered copies of the art they had seen on their educational self-improvement journeys. The artists doing the copies then as now were remarkably good at their work. And as long as it’s being ethically presented as a copy, no harm done.
To wind up this shaggy dog tale, I think it’s entirely possible that Donald and Ivana wanted to be in the rich kids club during the time when all the rich kids were buying impressionist art but couldn’t really run with the big dogs. Nor did either one really care about art itself or have any sense of taste. (Look at that recent CBS Sunday Morning interview with Ivana, that apartment is over the top gaudy!) Hard to imagine that they would have seen the need to spend money on a consultant since they probably didn’t care, thought they knew it all, and he would have been too cheap. So, why not a good copy, plenty of them available. And why not lie your *** off about it if you’re so arrogant you truly believe you’re smarter than everyone else who won’t know the difference?
One last thing, if Donald is so smart about everything, the best and all that, he would have bought a canvas or two at the time from Basquiat whose work is now worth millions. ‘Course, Basquiat was black and of Haitian heritage so an automatic no-go for Trump. Then too, would Basquiat have sold to Trump? Or if he did, would have mocked the narcissist nouveau riche buffon while quickly putting the payment in the bank.
Grrr, supposed to be buffoon not buffon. Sorry.
26yet another baby boomer: The problem with unknowingly buying a copy of a famous painting (and trying to pass it off as an original) is that you wind up looking ignorant and stupid. The Orange Moron always talks about his “great taste” when everybody with eyes recognizes pure tackiness when they see it. I don’t think he’s ever really tried to pass himself off as particularly knowledgeable about art–that would actually take time and effort, and we all know he has an aversion that. I think the Renoir copy was just an attempt to show his “great taste”–and if the rubes thinks it’s the real thing, then so much the better.
I have copies of paintings because I couldn’t afford the originals in a million years. They look very nice on my walls, but nobody is fooled and I’ve never claimed they were anything but copies. I also have bought original paintings from young artists; but they were affordable and I doubt my heirs will find themselves with a windfall anytime soon.
27Rhea:
28Thanks. Taibbi’s piece covered both of those points too. You’re definitely better at explaining them than I am. He also compares the different methods of ridding us of Donnie and the legality of each along with the chances of each for analysis.
BarbinDC: The cool thing is you saw art you like and brought it home to enjoy. And you probably helped the artist make a living. Good on everyone! I get all the art as investment biz, it’s just that it seems so joyless and impersonal. But then I’ve always been soft-hearted when it comes to the arts. That’s why this story irritates me so, that family scams and cheats in every possible way, right down to the faux art on the walls. Then takes money away from the NEA, NEH, IMLS, etc., etc. And that after taking away healthcare and voting rights. There’s no end to their depravity. I can’t wait until we march them out of the White House.
29tRump’s total fallback on the art he has on his walls: museums all over the world have been conned before into believing that what they bought or inherited was the real deal. Ergo, his is real. All the rest are fakes. Totally incapable of a learning experience. Hell, he hates learning. Thats why whenever a learning experience pops up he intuitively knows its not his game and he starts ranting etc. Private schools, at least one of them military, UPenn. What a waste of money! Now he goes after whatever opportunity, usually constrained, that the great unwashed have and completely repeal, rescind, destroy them. God help us all!
30I’ll bet he’s got some Thomas Kincade “original” paintings, too. For which he paid full retail price. Sucker.
31Maybe he thinks he’s such a savvy art connoisseur he thinks he has the original and the Art Institute of Chicago’s curators were the ones hoodwinked with a fake.
32It wouldn’t surprise me if the Renoir were a framed print, salvaged from a job lot used to decorate the Trump hotels. Donnie wouldn’t care, as long as he could brag about his Famous Art.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how bleak Trump’s life really is. He has no real interests, other than himself and money.
Art? The only things I know of that he brought to the Oval Office from the National Archives are a couple of eagles and a portrait of Andrew Jackson. ‘Cause Jackson was a Stong Leader, a genocidal racist, and appears on money – Trump’s kind of guy.
Music? I’ve never heard him comment on any song or performer. At the inaugural ball, he and Melania danced to “My Way”. Because the lyrics at least he related to.
Movies? A good way to keep track of the Best Actors; i.e., the ones with the highest box office and salaries. But mostly they’re Liberals, so why bother?
Sports? Well, he enjoys the pure aggression. Which is why he complains that the NFL’s efforts to reduce players’ brain injuries are “ruining the game”. Because No Lives Matter to him except for his own, and possibly his immediate family’s.
Food: McDonald’s, KFC, and overdone steak with ketchup. And Beautiful Chocolate Cake. As with any typical 9-year-old, veggies aren’t part of the picture. His taste buds probably shriveled up and died decades ago.
Science: “Fake”.
Nature: That’s what you bulldoze to build a new resort, or drive through in your golf cart.
History, philosophy, literature: You’re joking, right? Why read about anything that’s not about him, or ways to get richer?
When I contemplate the black, bottomless void that is Trump’s interior life, it chills me. What a lonely, joyless existence. And dangerous for all the rest of us. We have so much more to lose, if he decides that millions of lives are a small price to pay for showing the rest of the world who’s the boss.
33Lunargent: That’s a brilliant summation. Can you imagine only being satisfied when everybody around you spends all their time sucking up to you? Blecchhh!
34Lunargent:
35If you haven’t already, you oughta send that to the editorial board of the New York Times. Because there’s been volumes written, tweeted, and otherwise reported on Donnie’s state of mind (including the piece I referenced earlier). But you’ve made a great point that I haven’t heard anyone else come close to. And it really NEEDS to be out there.
Aawww, thanks, guys! /blush/
Think it’s kinda long for a tweet, though.
36But I’ll try a screenshot and Twitter post.
Okay, I have to amend a little. People have come close. But never put it all together to illustrate out your central point. The man is a black hole who surrounds himself to a large degree with people he perceives as just as hateful as he is. Oddly enough, I just read an opinion piece in the Washington Post that agrees with you and BarbinDC about his staffing choices, without showing your understanding of the cause. The author? George Will. Hence the lack of understanding. Or probably closer to the truth, he understands, but can’t publicly admit it without confirming what his party has become.
37one way I have maintained my sanity is to read your blog and the comments of your readers, thank you all!
38Just to be clear. Lunargent, New York Times, Washington Post, or any medium you choose.
39Parallel story about paintings and the president
Here’s one of W’s favorite cowboy paintings! Bush believes he’s the cowboy on the left, charging up a hill!
Now read what the painting is really about! This painting shows how smart Bush and everyone around him really were!
“A CHARGE TO KEEP”
OCTOBER 19, 2015
SUPER COWBOY IN THE WHITE HOUSE
Here’s the debate question we should ask Clinton, Trump, Sanders, and the herd of Republicans running for President:
“What art would you hang in the Oval Office?”
It sounds frivolous, but the answers reveal a lot about our last two presidents.
A charge to Keep”
When George W. Bush moved from the Texas governor’s office to the Oval Office in 2001, he brought his favorite painting, a 28 x 40 oil by Westerns illustrator W.H.D. Koerner which appeared on the back of his campaign biography, A Charge to Keep. The title is from a hymn, and a friend gave him the painting because it illustrated a 1918 short story of the same name. Bush believed the figure in the painting, a cowboy charging up a hill on horseback, was a 19th century Methodist evangelist spreading his faith across the West.
“He’s a determined horseman,” the President told visitors, “a very difficult trail. And you know at least two people are following him, and maybe a thousand.”
“Bush’s personal identification with the painting,” writes David Gergen, “reveals a good deal about his sense of himself . . . . a brave, daring leader riding fearlessly into the unknown, striking out against unseen enemies, pulling his team behind him, seeking, in the words of Wesley’s hymn, ‘to do my Master’s will.’”
Although the painting did appear beside Ben Ames Williams’ “A Charge to Keep” in Country Gentleman Magazine, Koerner painted it three years earlier for The Saturday Evening Post to illustrate a story by William J. Neidig called “The Slipper Tongue.”
The horseman is a horse-thief fleeing a lynch mob.
Click here for a photo of the painting!
40https://thepatronsaintofsuperheroes.wordpress.com/tag/a-charge-to-keep/
DJT’s art tastes are pure ‘Dictator Chic’. It’s a thing.
Every liar tells two lies: one for his audience, and one for himself.
iDJit at this point no longer knows what truth is, except that it’s painful and is the primary threat to his existence.
41Amazing! Many years ago when I was young and poor, I had one of those on the wall in my home! $18.95 at today’s prices. How much did you pay for yours, Donald?
http://www.artinstituteshop.org/item.aspx?productId=7076
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