SHORT TAKES : Portrait of Jesse as White Man

Jesse Jackson, viewing for the first time the controversial painting that depicts him as a blond, blue-eyed white man, said Sunday, “It’s not the picture that’s the insult. It’s the reality behind the picture: That’s the insult.”

The portrait, entitled “How Ya Like Me Now?” by artist David Hammons and part of the Washington Project for the Arts “The Blues Aesthetic” exhibition, was placed on a street corner Wednesday evening. Just as three white WPA employees completed the installation, a group of about 10 black men took a sledgehammer to the work, knocking a major portion down.

Sunday afternoon, Jackson saw the bottom section of the work, which shows his face from eyebrows to chin, when he toured the exhibition. He came, he said, to encourage the gallery, encourage artistic expression and put both the portrait and the reaction to it “in context.”

The “reaction is an extension of the art,” he said. “You drop a big rock in the water--the issue is not just the rock. It’s also the ripples. This is a big rock.”

Jackson said he did not personally find the work insulting “because I understand it. My response was interpretation and intent. But I understand those that reacted violently. We must appreciate the source of their pain. They must not be painted out of the equation.”