Daily Translation #3

特朗普大头照问世：拳打约翰·亚当斯，脚踢奥巴马，比肩华盛顿

千呼万唤始出来，富尔顿县警局发布的唐纳德·特朗普大头照一经问世就迅速被做成meme，即使这张照片有些出奇的寻常：不利的光线打在他的头和肩上，左上角还配有一个执法logo。

当然，无论从何种角度看，这张照片都是独一无二的，是会流芳百世的，是会在美国总统史狠狠地记上一笔的。但这并不是它对后继者的唯一贡献。

即便知者甚少，但这张照片也为美国总统肖像史打开了一扇新的大门。总统肖像的价值不仅在于其会引发我们对总统的思考，还会引发我们对国家的思考。

每一任总统都代表了这个国家，既在政治意味上，也在象征意味上。因此，很大程度上来说，总统的形象就是国家的形象。从创作氛围和环境上讲，特朗普的大头照乍一看与以往庄严肃穆的总统画像十分脱节，而且后者的形象往往是精心营造出来的。但从其效果和受众使用情况来看，这张照片绝对是空前绝后的。

自美国成立之初，领袖画像就成为了重要的万能政治工具。很少有总统没有注意到其画像的力量。乔治·华盛顿骄傲地向弗农山庄的游客展示他的肖像；巴拉克·奥巴马出人意料地选择了画家凯欣德·威利为自己作画，后者将其描绘得面目一新，无论是从视觉上还是政治方面。

成功的总统画像的标准是能够使人物看起来孔武有力，充满活力，最重要的是富有领袖气质。然而当我们深究这段历史，就会发现它是错综复杂和意义重大的。一次又一次，总统们在某些事件中与画中的自己背道而驰。他们渴望掌控。如此看来，特朗普的大头照也不例外。并不是所有总统肖像都像博物馆里挂的那样。

比如说约翰·昆西·亚当斯，他是当时被描绘得最多的人物之一。在作为总统之子的童年里和漫长的工作生涯中，他是几十个肖像，雕塑和照片的主角。因此，对于后辈如何描绘他这种身份的人，亚当斯心知肚明。他甚至在日记里列了个清单，记录了他认为把自己画得最好的几幅肖像，并说到只有这几幅才“配被珍藏。”

在1839年摄影被引入到美国之后，亚当斯试了好几次银版照相。事实上现存最早的总统照片是亚当斯在1843年拍摄的一张银版照片，现在收藏于史密森学会的国家肖像画廊。但亚当斯并不热衷于摄影。他难以久坐等待漫长的曝光时间，并且他在日记中吐露，他自己的银版照片“极其丑陋”，“令人恶心”，而且“过于真实”。最后，他认为这种新技术很难稳定地创作出一副能够“万古流芳”的肖像。

如果说亚当斯厌恶拍摄的照片，那么后继的总统则厌恶偷拍的照片。19世纪末期，便携式照相机的问世使得偷拍照片成为可能。西奥多罗斯福斥责了当时一家报纸所称的一位年轻的“摄影魔”，后者试图在罗斯福离开教堂时“抓拍”他。大约十年后，伍德罗·威尔逊威胁要胖揍一名记者，因为当他与女儿从一次大汗淋漓的骑行回来时，这名记者拒绝停止拍照。众所周知，白宫试图隐瞒富兰克林·罗斯福身体残疾的证据，但顾问们也担心即使最常规的抓拍也会使他看起来情况不妙。

1937年，《大众摄影》杂志报道称，对于偷拍罗斯福在一次政治野餐时大啖热狗的照片，白宫新闻办公室非常恼火。同时它也谴责在罗斯福总统享受棒球比赛开幕日时拍摄的一张模糊照片。这些照片是在很远的地方拍摄的，质量较差，但同时也向白宫方面传递了信息，即总统的身体健康状况遭到质疑。在这个偷拍的时代，局面很难被掌控。

数码摄影的兴起并未给总统肖像画带来改变，但是给总统的掌控权带来了挑战。作为第一任社交媒体总统，巴拉克·奥巴马在掌控与互动间游走。最终呈现出的结果是，总统可以不经过传统的主流媒体之口，直接与民众交流。政府几乎利用了每一个新兴社交媒体。此外由皮特·苏萨领导的白宫摄影师为总统照片建立了一个庞大视觉档案，并在网络相册中实时分享。但这些受控言论与多元并富有交互性的新文化相抵触。这些权威照片一经发布，就不可避免地会被meme化。有些是为了吹捧，有些则不然。

在每个这样的时刻，摄影技术的变革引发了人们对总统形象的担忧。如果一张丑陋的银版照片，一张模糊的偷拍或一个古怪的meme都能象征总统，那这个国家的形象如何？即便总统们不喜欢，这些照片也的的确确描绘着总统的肖像，也与那些装裱起来的油画一样重要，描绘着一段历史。

这一切都把我们带回到特朗普的大头照。他把照片上传到了X，也就是之前的Twitter，并配字“永不屈服”，即便他刚刚向富尔顿县警局自首。这是个明智之举，就像他那自信的怒容，旨在重夺话语权。这张接地气的照片比那些挂在国家肖像画廊里正儿八经的画像更有辨识度。特朗普可能会效仿华盛顿将他的照片自信展出。无论如何，这张大头照，就像不靠谱的银版相片，模糊的偷拍照和恶搞的meme一样，绝对将会“万古流芳”。

Original Article:

Trump Joins George Washington, John Quincy Adams and Barack Obama

Eagerly anticipated and immediately meme-ified, the mug shot of Donald Trump -that the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office circulated last week- was in some ways utterly conventional: a head-and-shoulders view with unflattering lighting and a law enforcement logo in the corner.

 In nearly every other way, of course, the image is singular, a photograph for the ages, one that will forever punctuate this moment in the history of the presidency. But that wasn’t its only contribution to posterity.

 In ways that have been less widely noted, it is also an important new entry in the history of presidential portraits, whose significance lies in how they invite us to think not just about our leaders but also about the nation itself.

 Both politically and symbolically, any president represents the nation; by some significant measure, then, his image is its image. In its mood and in the circumstances of its creation, Mr. Trump’s mug shot initially seems like a jarring disconnect from the most august traditions of presidential portraits, with their carefully constructed air of gravitas. But in its effect, and in the way its subject has begun to deploy it, the picture is the natural evolution of all the images that came before it.

 Since the first days of the Republic, portraits of our commanders in chief have proved to be important and versatile political tools. Few presidents have failed to note their power. George Washington was known to proudly display his portraits to Mount Vernon visitors, while Barack Obama surprised many by selecting the painter Kehinde Wiley in a clear bid to define himself — visually as well as politically — as something new.

 The standard line is that successful presidential images make their subjects look strong, active and, above all else, presidential. When we look deeper, however, we find that the history is more complex and consequential. Time and time again, presidents have wrestled with or in some cases openly fought back to challenge the ways they were being pictured. They sought control. By that standard, Mr. Trump’s mug shot is no outlier. Not all presidential portraits look like the ones hanging in our museums.

 Take the example of John Quincy Adams, who was one of the most prolifically depicted people of his age. From his childhood as the son of a president and throughout his long career in public life, he was the subject of dozens of painted portraits, sculptures and photographs. As a result, Adams had clear ideas about how men of his stature should be depicted for posterity. He even made a short list in his diary of the portraits he felt captured him best. Only those few, he said, were “worthy of being preserved.”

 After photography was introduced in the United States in 1839, Adams sat several times for daguerreotypes. In fact, the oldest existing photograph of a president is a daguerreotype Adams sat for in 1843, now in the collection of the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. Yet Adams never warmed to photography. He had trouble sitting for long exposures, and he confided to his diary that his own daguerreotype portraits were “hideous,” “repulsive” and “too true to the original.” Ultimately, he found the nascent technology too unstable for creating the kind of image worthy of being “transmitted to the memory of the next age.”

 If Adams worried about the photographs he posed for, later presidents worried about the photographs they didn’t consent to. Beginning in the late 19th century, the advent of portable cameras made it possible for photographers to capture subjects unawares. Theodore Roosevelt called out what a newspaper at the time called a young “camera fiend” for attempting to “snap” him as he was leaving church. A decade or so later, Woodrow Wilson threatened to punch a journalist who refused to stop photographing as he and his daughter returned from a sweaty bicycle ride. It’s well known that the White House sought to keep evidence of Franklin Roosevelt’s physical disability out of sight, but advisers were also anxious that even the most routine candid shot might make him look bad.

 In 1937, Popular Photography magazine reported that the White House press office was up in arms about unauthorized snapshots of Roosevelt chomping on a hot dog at a political picnic. It also objected to blurry photos of the president enjoying opening day at a baseball game. Those photos, taken from far away, were of such poor quality that they apparently prompted messages to the White House questioning the state of the president’s health. In the era of the candid camera, control was hard to come by.

 The rise of digital photography didn’t transform presidential portraiture so much as it upped the ante on the question of control. As the first social media president, Barack Obama walked the line between control and interactivity. Finally, it seemed, a president could communicate directly to citizens without having to go through the traditional filters of mainstream media. The administration took advantage of nearly every new social media outlet as it emerged. In addition, White House photographers, led by Pete Souza, built a huge visual archive of presidential photographs shared in real time on Flickr. But those controlled communications butted up against a new culture of remixing and interactivity. Just as soon as those authorized images were released, the inevitable memes followed. Some of those flattered; others, not so much.

 In each of these moments, transformations in the technology of photography prompted anxieties about presidential representation. If an awkward daguerreotype, blurry snapshot or quirky meme would come to symbolize the president, then what did that say about the nation? Yet as unwelcome as they might have been for their subjects, these images are presidential portraits, too, and they tell a visual history as important as any rendered in oil paints and framed in gold leaf.

 All of which brings us back to Mr. Trump’s mug shot. He posted it on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, declaring “never surrender,” even though he had just literally surrendered. It was an effective move that, like his assertive scowl, was designed to reclaim the narrative. Already, this vernacular image is far more recognizable than many formal portraits that hang in the National Portrait Gallery. Mr. Trump may yet follow George Washington in proudly displaying it to visitors. Whatever the case, the mug shot, like the unstable daguerreotype and the blurry snapshot and the meme, absolutely deserves to be “transmitted to the memory of the next age.”

原网址：

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/30/opinion/trump-mug-shot-washington-presidential-portrait.html