The Impeachment Trial’s Sketch Artist on How He Captures Senators’ Most Revealing Moments
Art Lien is spending long nights in the Senate chamber illustrating a pivotal moment in history
The impeachment of President Trump, as seen through a camera lens, has been a dull affair. After the GOP-controlled Senate decided to ban outside news cameras from covering the trial, anyone hoping to watch lawyers and politicians debate whether Trump’s interactions with Ukraine constitute an impeachable offense has had to rely on a fixed, single-angle video feed in the Senate chamber. Any sort of visual flair has come courtesy of Art Lien, who has covered the courts as a sketch artist for 44 years.
Seated in a gallery above the Senate floor, Lien has attended every day of the trial, which he’s captured in candid 9-by-12 watercolors from the chamber. Lien’s work, which is being published daily in the New York Times, depicts our lawmakers during vulnerable moments: Sen. Marco Rubio fanning himself, or Sen. Mitt Romney carrying a bottle of chocolate milk. The point of the sketch artist’s work is not to break news — it’s to bring some humanity to what can seem an otherwise sterile proceeding under circumstances where more current techniques of depiction are barred. “I’m there to do color,” Lien told GEN. “I’ve got…
