DON LOOK NOW
A lot of MAGAs were upset with Jane Rosenberg’s courtroom sketch of Donald Trump at his historic arraignment on Tuesday as they deemed it not “flattering” enough. Some said the sketch, which will appear on the cover of The New Yorker, looked like it had been drawn with “mud”, and the rest screamed that it was “biased”
But what did they expect?
The role of the sketch artist isn’t to flatter the defendant. It’s to stare deep into their soul and reveal who the defendant really is.
After 40 years of covering the biggest trials in US history, Rosenberg is regarded as among the world’s best.
“My job as a courtroom artist is to try to remain neutral all the time. I’m not trying to have an opinion in my work,” she said. “If somebody displays emotion, then that’s what I have to try to capture.”
Look at her portraits below. I don’t think any of her subjects would be hanging them on their living room walls. But that doesn’t mean they don’t all tell a story – albeit a haunting one, when the defendant is at their most vulnerable.