The painter of right: Jon McNaughton and the conservative challenge to visual culture

Abstract

In the last decade, conservative artist Jon McNaughton has gained notoriety. This essay reads McNaughton to make better sense of conservatism's relationship with liberal democratic visual culture. McNaughton's paintings register as kitschy dissent from the democratic elements of US visual culture. Analyzing his work not only makes sense of the work that form does in making conservative audiences keen for his art, but also outlines how a conservative way of seeing confounds some common assumptions in visual rhetorical studies, and complicates the overall functionality of liberal democratic society more generally. While confirming the democratic potential of the visual, the study suggests the need for revision to key methods in visual rhetorical criticism in light of the resilience of the right-wing visual regimes, with special attention to circulation and an assessment of the right-wing's ability to generate broad hostility to the entirety of the modern liberal democratic enterprise.