George Washington was the subject of Finster’s first painting, and the artist continued to portray his hero in a wide array of poses and at different ages. Finster felt a mystical connection to Washington, who also serves here as a figure of loss, evincing the painter’s nostalgia for a potent kind of integrity he felt the modern world had forgotten. In this portrait, the president’s head materializes amid a proliferation of details that blends Washington’s torso with the background and renders him at once spiritual and physical as his massive face rises amid the throng.
