- The first official portrait of King Charles III since his coronation is dividing the art world.
- Some critics panned the painting, which took British artist Jonathan Yeo three years to complete.
- UK-based art critic Tabish Khan said the use of red paint reminded him of “The Shining.”
If King Charles had high hopes for how the world would react to his first official portrait, they might be dashed by now.
The painting, which British artist Jonathan Yeo spent three years working on, was unveiled at Buckingham Palace on Tuesday and instantly sent the art world into a tailspin.
It depicts the king in military garb amid a sea of red brushstrokes, with a single monarch butterfly floating above his right shoulder. Hidden details subtly nod to Charles’s passion for the environment and his royal lineage.
The painting may have gotten a seal of approval from Queen Camilla, who told Yeo that he “got” her husband, according to the BBC, but some art critics have been less positive.
The Washington Post’s art critic called it a “stylistic mess,” while an artist and faculty member at the Rhode Island School of Design told Today its red brushstrokes remind him of dripping “blood.”
Soon after its debut, the portrait also stirred up debate on social media, dividing royal fans into those who enjoy the piece and those who are less appreciative of the artistic direction.
Two critics gave Business Insider their takes.
The portrait’s red color is a nod to bloody imperialism
Tabish Khan, a London-based art critic and visual arts editor for The Londonist, told Business Insider he wasn’t surprised that the portrait has received some flak.
Its red color is particularly evocative, Khan added.
“It almost alludes to some sort of massacre that he’s been part of,” Khan said. “Given the royal family’s history and ties to colonialism and imperialism, it’s not hard for people to look at it and then make the leap that it’s somehow related to that.”
“There’s almost always a ‘Shining’- esque feel about him being soaked in blood,” he continued, referencing a scene in Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 horror movie classic “The Shining” where blood gushes out of an elevator.
Jonathan Yeo was a ‘safe choice’ for a royal portrait, one critic said
Khan said he’s fairly confident that drawing links to the royal family’s murky past with colonialism wasn’t on Yeo’s agenda. In fact, he added, it’s likely the palace commissioned the 53-year-old painter because he’s “known for doing flattering portraits.”
“He’s painted a lot of celebrities and — let’s be honest — when you’re going for a royal portrait, you generally go for a safe choice, and that’s what Jonathan is,” Khan said.
Khan said he would have liked to see Charles break with royal tradition and hire an artist with a more innovative approach.
“People were holding out hopes of Charles being a bit of a reformer for the royal family. I think a lot of people thought he might be the first monarch to officially apologize for Britain’s history in colonialism,” Khan said. “It feels like a step backward and in the wrong direction.”
Given Charles’s passion for the environment, Khan also said he found it “odd” that there was only one allusion to it: the lone butterfly.
“You could put more into the portrait about his environmental side that would make him a bit more personable and more relatable,” Khan said.
The painting captures Charles’ ‘flaws’ and ‘mortality,’ another critic said
There’s at least one fan of Charles’s new portrait: art historian Richard Morris, who specializes in American, British, and European paintings from the 19th and 20th centuries.
In an email to Business Insider, Morris said he thought Yeo’s painting is “extraordinary and probably the most insightful of a British monarch since Holbein’s portrait of Henry VIII, because we see the King for all his flaws and his mortality.”
“It’s a piece of philosophy, a painting that invites us to think about age, responsibility, openness, and the limits of being human,” Morris added. “We can see the weight of the King’s responsibility, his age, the grief over the death of the late Queen and in his face, wisdom, worry, and concern. It makes him human.”
Morris said he also found the piece to be “refreshingly modern.”
As for the overwhelmingly red palette, Morris said he could see why some viewers might think of blood.
“It’s an audacious color, a color that might well overwhelm someone less certain of his past, his future, and the future of Britain in a modern world,” he said.
But in Morris’ view, the red is “dramatic and suggestive,” conjuring up “notions of love, passion, but also the blush of youth, ripe fruit, and age.” It also reflects the color of the king’s military uniform, he added.
Khan, the London-based critic, admitted that he likes at least one element of the royal portrait.
“The face captured his likeness well,” he said. “If the face was in isolation, I wouldn’t say it’s such a bad portrait — but the rest doesn’t help.”
