Pretty poll portraits for parliament walls

In these times of fierce partisanship, a quirky and relatively new tradition of the British parliament could be considered for emulation by India in 2019: an official artist to “cover” the elections.

For the last five general elections, the British Speaker’s Advisory Committee on Works of Art has appointed one artist to capture the essence of the exercise. Such a commission could justifiably be prejudged as a licence to flatter, except that the chosen candidate is always asked to refrain from favouring any particular party and focus, instead, on the broad “mood”.

That, of course, is a tough call given that not many artists are apolitical and there’s always that thin line between neutral and banal. But elliptical imagery can be used, instead, to great effect.

The artist who will portray the June 2017 UK general elections, for instance, is using social media to post images of the campaign as part of her oeuvre and has recently put up a photo of a group of garden gnomes.

Make of that what you will. As the finished artworks go on display in the British parliament, they offer a welcome visual change from the usual formal paintings of political luminaries that grace parliament walls around the world. Elections are the sine qua non for politics and, therefore, deserve their own “portraits”. The artist community in India should canvas for it.