George W. Bush has spent years cultivating one of the most carefully maintained post-presidential images in American politics, largely avoiding direct commentary on Donald Trump even as the Republican Party was transformed by Trump’s rise, but now a bizarre secret from Bush’s painting studio has opened a very different window into what may be happening behind that public silence.

According to journalist Jacob Weisberg, Bush has privately painted a portrait of Donald Trump that is so unflattering that the former president has refused to show it to anyone, creating an extraordinary contrast between the former president’s public refusal to engage Trump directly and the intensely personal way Weisberg says Bush has chosen to express his feelings through art.

Weisberg, whose new book Profiles in Cowardice examines Bush’s approach to Trump, described the hidden painting as a “really ugly picture of Trump, which he won’t show to anybody.”

But the revelation did not stop there. “He’s expressing all of his feelings through painting, this kind of art therapy,” Weisberg said, explaining that Bush is using painting as a way to discuss politics and communicate emotions without actually making those political statements publicly.

That interpretation is particularly striking because Bush has become increasingly known for his painting since leaving the White House in 2009, turning what began as a private hobby into a substantial part of his post-presidential life, including portraits of military veterans and paintings connected to major moments from his presidency.

In other words, the former president who rarely talks about Trump may have found another language entirely. Paint.

And according to Weisberg, the Trump portrait may be saying something Bush has deliberately refused to say aloud.

The image has been compared by Weisberg to The Picture of Dorian Gray, the famous story in which a hidden portrait reflects the truth about its subject while the public face remains unchanged.

“The truth is in the picture,” Weisberg said in describing his interpretation of Bush’s secret work.

That makes the revelation politically fascinating, although it is important to separate what is known from what is being inferred.

There is no public photograph of the alleged Trump portrait, Bush has not publicly displayed it, and a Bush spokesman declined to comment to The New Yorker when asked about the painting’s existence. The report therefore rests on Weisberg’s account rather than a public confirmation from Bush himself.

Still, the story fits into a much larger question surrounding Bush and Trump.

When Trump entered Republican politics in 2015, he directly targeted the Bush family, attacking Jeb Bush during the presidential campaign and criticizing the legacy of George W. Bush’s presidency. Trump’s rise eventually pushed the Republican Party into a very different political era, while George W. Bush largely remained outside the direct fight.

Weisberg’s criticism is precisely that Bush could have spoken more openly.

“He could have done that, and he should have done that,” Weisberg said, referring to Bush publicly addressing Trump and his policies, before adding that Bush “won’t say Trump’s name.”

That is what makes the secret painting such a compelling political image.

A former Republican president who has largely avoided publicly confronting the current Republican president may nevertheless have created a private portrait that, according to a journalist familiar with the story, expresses feelings he has chosen not to put into words.

And Trump, who is obsessed with his and other people’s physical appearances, has already demonstrated how sensitive he can be about unflattering portraits.

After Colorado displayed a painting of Trump that he disliked, Trump complained publicly that the image had been “purposefully distorted,” called it “truly the worst,” and said he would have preferred not to have a picture at all rather than have that particular one displayed. The Trump White House later supplied an approved portrait to the Colorado Capitol.

Which raises the strangest possibility in this entire story. Somewhere in Bush’s studio, if Weisberg’s account is accurate, there may be a painting of Donald Trump that the public has never seen and Trump almost certainly has never been invited to admire.

Bush has spoken through paintings before. He has painted veterans, historical moments and even the classroom scene from September 11, an image that became one of the most recognizable moments of his presidency.

But this time, the subject is not a soldier or a historic tragedy. It is Donald Trump.

And while George W. Bush continues to say little publicly about the man who transformed his party, the secret portrait has created a tantalizing question that no political speech could make quite as vivid:

What exactly did Bush see when he put Trump on the canvas?