It seems Steve Bannon has a portrait of himself as Napoleon. (It’s not what you see here, but it must be similar, albeit with a more Proactive complexion.) The Guardian tells us,

“Steve Bannon, the White House chief strategist, owns an oil painting of himself dressed as Napoleon Bonaparte – and it was given to him by Nigel Farage…

While no images of Bannon’s version have yet been made public, speculative Twitter users have had fun photoshopping the White House adviser’s head on to the body of the 19th century French ruler.”

My friend, artist Matthew Weinstein wrote the opinion piece, below, for New York magazine about the painting and for one reason or another, it didn’t run. The Wow Report offered to post it, as a public service, of course.

“At 5’ 6”, Napoleon was pretty small for the contemporary imagination to envision as a great man. ‘Napoleonic’ means, ‘overcompensating.’ There is no word ‘George Washingtonish.’ Washington was 6’ 2” and behaved as our height biased imaginations needed him to; he did enormous things. Any person described as Abraham Lincolnish would be to real to have an idiotic portrait like this painted.

Did you know that Bannon is the same height as Ivanka? 5’ 11”. If you ask me, there is way too much of both of them. If Bannon isn’t short, what is he overcompensating for besides being the same height as a female fellow spokesperson for Pillage And Death Inc?

Who knows. But it is curious that Bannon also likes the work of another overcompensating hand hider, Adolph Hitler.

Once an Art Historian specializing in depictions of Napoleon in the work of Jacques Louis David and Antoine-Jean Gros explained to me all the good that Napoleon did for Europe. I realized that good propaganda keeps working no matter how close we get to it. Bad propaganda only dignifies itself by not functioning.

I wish I could laugh.”

–Matthew Weinstein