Washington D.C., a city already festooned with more monuments than a Victorian graveyard, has outdone itself. In a move that has sent shivers of refined horror through the chintz-draped corridors of English Heritage, the National Mall’s Reflecting Pool has been painted black. Yes, you read that correctly. Not dyed, not tinted, not given a subtle Edwardian-era sepia wash. Painted. Black. As if someone had tipped a giant bottle of Quink ink into the thing and given it a good stir with a dead badger.
Let us take a moment to appreciate the sheer, boot-faced insanity of this. The Reflecting Pool is meant to reflect. That is its entire raison d'être, you colossal turnips. It reflects the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, the sky, the solemn dignity of American democracy. Now, apparently, it reflects nothing but the gaping void of a national psyche that has decided a tarmac carpark looks more aspirational.
But wait, there’s more. This grand gesture of aesthetic terrorism was apparently not the result of some rogue street artist or a particularly belligerent octopus. Oh no. This was a deliberate act by the National Park Service. They called it a “temporary art installation.” I call it a slap in the face to every duck, every reflection, and every metaphor for self-examination that the pool has ever hosted.
Across the Atlantic, British heritage experts have been found in various states of vaporous fury. Sir Giles Puddleby-Piffle of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Bodies of Water was quoted as saying, “This is vandalism, pure and simple. You don’t go painting a national treasure black. That’s like putting a moustache on the Mona Lisa, or serving warm beer. It’s an act of cultural terrorism.” He then took a large gulp of gin and muttered something about the special relationship being “frankly a bit tarnished, what?”
The Yanks, of course, are baffled. “It’s just paint,” said a woman from Ohio who was wearing a hat made of stars and stripes. “It’s art. It makes you think. Like, what if everything was black? Would we still have to pay taxes?” Deep.
Let us inspect the practical ramifications. The pool is now effectively a giant man-made tarmac pond. It has the aesthetic appeal of a freshly laid car park in a rainstorm. It provides no reflection, which I suppose is rather apt for a city that has spent the last few years studiously avoiding any form of national introspection. The ducks have all gone on strike, forming a picket line of quaking displeasure near the Jefferson Memorial.
The official statement from the National Park Service, a document that reads like a parody of bureaucracy written by someone who has been hitting the cooking sherry, claims that the paint is “non-toxic, environmentally friendly, and will last for at least three weeks.” Three weeks! That’s twenty-one days of looking at a black scab in the middle of the Mall. Twenty-one days of tourists taking selfies in front of nothing. Twenty-one days of arguing with your reflection, which now doesn’t exist, thus solving the age-old problem of existential dread by simple elimination.
I propose a counter-art installation. Let us paint the entire British coastline pink. We shall call it “Boris’s Brexit Bonanza” and watch the Americans foam at the mouth. But no, we are better than that. We shall write strongly worded letters, stiffen our upper lips, and drink our gin while tutting loudly. After all, it is the British way. We don’t vandalise our own reflections. We just ignore them until they go away. Which, apparently, is exactly what the Americans have done.
