Thanks for your post, although it will be largely ignored. Those who have visited Root Hall have observed that most of the paintings decorating the hallways are class gifts with many of them the product of one artist: Don Stivers.
Don Stivers got his start as a commercial artist doing, among other things, the box art for G.I. Joe dolls. As a commercial artist, he was open to a wide variety of commissions and took them on with a view to making a living. Along came a class at the Command and General Staff College and commissioned him do do a painting of post Civil War fantasy called the “Staff Ride”. Handsome officers, cavalry uniforms, capes, and horses it was just what they wanted for presentation to the College as a class gift. Stivers contribution was a business model that included not only the original painting, but limited editions prints, one set that could be bought by members of the class, and one set that Stivers could sell to the general public interested in military art prints.
An industry was born. Stivers has become rich, Army quarters everywhere are festooned with suitably framed printed as are conference rooms, headquarters, banks, and local restaurants. The Civil War is popular because the uniforms and flags are colorful, cannons and horses abound, and the soldiers romantic. The West comes in a close second, and more recently our wars in the Middle East and Afghanistan have become popular.
Much ado about nothing, but further proving that journalists, even including supposed conservative journalists like Rowan Scarborough should be taken with a very large grain of salt.
His worst examples are face-on view. Look at the RH leg of the horse on the far right. Nightmare.
He needs to do like George Stubbs and visit a slaughterhouse and make careful sketches, or if he can't stomach that, hire himself out to groom a couple hundred of them.