How to paint a square circle?

Blazing Reader,

As promised in yesterday's post, here is Jordan Henderson's explanation for why he relied so heavily on words instead of images in his latest painting, "Contraindications":

As to why I went ahead and broke the show don't tell rule (a rule with which I am in general agreement):

Well, on second thought, mostly actually I did want to show, not tell; I wanted to show protestors carrying signs with... slogans of their own choosing.

The idea being to juxtapose different feel-good progressive slogans to highlight contradictions in their prescriptions for society.

But protest signs generally tell rather than show. I mean, they write slogans on their signs, so really, I would argue that I'm showing them telling you with their signs.

The only area I would say where I directly tell the viewer, rather than show the protestors telling the viewer, is with the "2 + 2 = 5" and "War is Peace" signs. That was straight-up editorializing on my part, which I hesitated on but decided to do after showing the mock-up to a few people who didn't get that I was criticizing the protestors, because the slogans are so common [that] it didn't even phase them. They were just used to hearing progressives talk like that. So they were looking at my preliminary sketches and thinking, "Okay, a painting of a bunch of protesters, carrying signs for popular social justice causes, and...?"

So those "2 + 2 = 5" and "War is Peace" signs I put in to tip off the unsuspecting viewer who might think this painting is just a value-neutral portrayal of a protest, that I'm showing them something else about it.

Too bad Jordan couldn't have just painted a protest sign with a square circle.

But maybe that's exactly why he had to use so many words to convey the message behind "Contraindications." Words can be manipulated a lot more easily than visual reality.

John C.A. Manley

P.S. If you missed my review of Jordan's painting, you can check it out here: Why I'm disappointed with "Contraindication" (Jordan Henderson's latest sociopolitical painting)

P.P.S. Did you know that Jordan Henderson is the reincarnation of George Cruikshank — the man who illustrated the first edition of Oliver Twist? Here's the sketchy evidence.