Reversing the normal vector of sovereign representation, former US President George W. Bush is engaged in an ongoing project of painting his former subjects, hundreds of portraits of wounded US veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This article explores what it means to have a sovereign observe and render in oil the very subjects he sent to war. It will track the politically vexed communicative exchanges of deference, recognition, power, and identity in such portrait making. Furthermore, assessing the meaning of the invitation to wounded veterans to be painted by one’s former Commander in Chief, the article raises complex issues of victimhood and responsibility. Asking the questions, ‘Who gets to look at whom?’ and ‘Who gets to render whom?’, the article takes as its model Foucault’s analysis of the troubled ‘reciprocal visibility’ in Velazquez’s painting, Las Meninas.

为了扭转主权代表制的正常面纱，美国前总统布什正在进行一个正在进行的项目，该项目为他的前任题材，数百名受伤的美国退伍军人在伊拉克和阿富汗战争中的退伍军人画上肖像。本文探讨了拥有一个主权国家观察并在石油中渲染他派往战争的对象的含义。它将追踪这种肖像制作过程中在政治上烦恼的尊重，认可，权力和身份认同的交流。此外，该文章评估了前总司令所画的邀请受伤的退伍军人的含义，并提出了受害和责任的复杂问题。问一些问题，“谁来看看谁？” 和“谁来渲染谁？”，