King Charles New Portrait

I love the colors, but the hands are problematic. I know he has sausage fingers, but they look more like rotted ground beef.

It’s getting dire reviews, I think, but I personally like it. He’s a calm figure emerging from chaos. There are worse ways for a monarch to be presented.

I actually like it, but the intense red reminds me of a bleeding organ. Perhaps another color would have been more suitable and seemed less raw and urgent?

Or are things getting urgent with the monarch?

What does the butterfly represent?

The things these poor Royals have to put up with. Its atrocious, but of course Charles can't say so publicly. Never complain, never explain I guess.

[quote]He’s a calm figure emerging from chaos.

Or Satan emerging from Hell.

The message clearly is: he fades into the background.

I could have told you that seventy years ago.

It looks like Charles is at war with symbolic blood dripping all around.

I know Harry and Markle are at war with Charles, but there hasn't been any blood spilled yet.

A twentysomething painter made this commissioned portrait of Prince Philip (who sat for it fully covered) two decades ago. All he said when he saw it was (reportedly), "Gadzooks!", but it later came out he hated it.

It seemed like a nasty trick to play on him./

He's been sitting on that burning ring of fire too long.

Many artists are mentally ill, keep that in mind.

'Yet' r8

"Is this how we dress for the office? You look like a blood clot!"

The hands do look awful. His hands are NOT his best feature, so it's an odd thing to ... FEATURE in a painting that is sparse on human-looking details.

The face part is flattering. His eyes don't seem that close together and he looks very masculine.

I don't mind all the red, but I think the background should have been darker red than the outfit. The outfit would have popped more. I know that the point was to fade into the background, but it still could have been achieved.

Typically butterfly = transformation.

All the red reminds me of this one.

I think it's fine, though the red is a little odd to me. But the more diffuse an image of Charles, the better.

What do you mean I'll have to fake cancer to get a bloody vacation? I'm not a slave!

Considering what it is and what it’s for I think it’s pretty good. It’s really not anymore than just what it is.

Or maybe this one.

Lots of people here "seeing" the Emperor's new clothes, as it were.

This depiction is GROTESQUE! Like King Charles is the star of the movie "Carrie: Revenge of the Trans-Monarch."

Perhaps the artist sought to remind us of the fate of Charles I in tandem with the cancer diagnosis of Charles III: "Monarch and Mortality."

It could have been worse...

Butterfly = Monarch, get it?

It's kind of crazy that QE had Lucian Freud paint her portrait. I give her credit for doing that. It's hard to not know what kinds of paintings he's capable of.

On the other hand, it could have been much better...

Oh it looks just awful. Look at all the other tastefully done portraits of historic figures. I don't think England should tolerate this and as for a remake. What a joke. The painter did not like him. Thumbs down.

The weird thing is that Freud's is not the most unpopular portrait ever done of the late Queen. George Condo's in the Tate Modern is universally loathed.

At R24, that looks Norman Rockwell-esque.

I think it’s bloody fabulous!

R5

The hands are definitely the travesty in this "portrait". Seasoned artists will agree that Hands are often the most difficult part of a portrait.

This guy blew it IN SPADES.

Why is he floating in a vat of menstrual discharge?

Looks like something from The Night Gallery

I like the Freud portrait.

Art major here, drawing and painting. For some reason, hands weren’t so hard for me. Faces were harder, specifically, the space or transition between the nose and the mouth.

The head is accomplished enough to make all else look like an extensive error of judgement. So much lazy lurid background filler. The King deserved so much better.

Freud's portrait of The Queen is very small, and characteristically packs a punch. Uneasy sits the head who wears the crown, but nonetheless the iron will of the longest reign is conveyed.

R31 Hope this helps.

It looks like something from an episode of Night Gallery.

It is an insult and probably worse in person. Charles should be depicted against nature, he likes gardening. And he is a painter himself! And a talented one, he should have a superb portrait. Instead it looks like a chimp rolled around in red paint and they stuck an AI handsome version of Charles' face on top. My first thought was he look like he's still in a womb, age 79. Mummy!!

The head is very good. If the painting were cropped just below the medals to make it a horizontal format (see the Reuters 2nd photo), it would be fine.

I really like it. It's blends tradition with modern. I think it's terrific.

Me too. I think it’s great.

It reminds me of Obama’s portrait where he’s emerging from what looks green foliage.

Looks like a 60s paperback book cover. And yes, he does have McConnell hands.

He's a tampon.

R25 💯

It looks like it was daubed on with one of those used tampons he so desperately wanted to be.

It reminds me of Bram Stoker's Dracula. They should have Banksy paint it. At least it would come with its own shredder.

"Yeo said: “One is the colour, obviously, which was inspired by the colour of the bright red tunic of the Welsh Guards. And that got me thinking it would be lovely to take the colour and spray it around the picture.

“The uniform and the medals are great references to historic royal portraits of the past but it felt like this one should have a bit more dynamic and contemporary feel."

“The other thing is the butterfly. I would love to take full credit for that but it was actually the subject’s idea.”

Charles laughed and asked: “Was it?”

Yeo said: “Yes. We had a conversation at the start about how it would be nice to have a narrative element which referenced his passion for nature and the environment and you said. ‘Why not have a butterfly on my shoulder, they often do that.’ I thought, ‘Oh that’s a good idea, I wish I had thought of that.’

When it was pointed out that the butterfly was, in fact, an endangered monarch butterfly, Yeo said: “Yes another bit of artistic licence. It was named after William of Orange, I think, originally. Because it was orange. They are the ones most in danger.”

The King replied: “I have seen them in that extraordinary part of Mexico in a remarkable forest. Thousands of them. But it is extraordinary how butterflies do come and land on your shoulder if you are in the garden or something. I think it’s lucky if they land on you, do you know what I mean?”

Yeo had four sittings with the King, beginning in June 2021 at Highgrove when Charles was still the Prince of Wales. Yeo took drawings and photographs to work on the portrait between sittings.

(Laura Freeman, chief art critic, writes): It’s a curiously unthrusting portrait. Traditionally, kings pushed themselves forward. Think of Hans Holbein’s Henry VIII, shoulders huge, codpiece colossal, legs bestriding his kingdom of carpet. Or Van Dyck’s Charles I on horseback, shining with knightly ardour while surveying his kingdom. Much good it did him. Our Charles quite literally fades into the background, his sleeves little distinguished from the scumbled ground. (It’s a polite trick, too, for diminishing the outline of those ears.)

Pomp? Circumstance? This is a king signalling that he is content to be a wallflower, albeit of the hothouse variety. Won’t impose, mustn’t meddle.

Whatever you make of the background — too disobedient for my loyalist tastes — the face is beautifully done. When sitting for a portrait, there’s generally an agreement that you won’t do anything too drastic with your appearance. No radical haircut, no extreme weight gain or loss. But you cannot plan for the gains and losses of life, and it is these that leave lasting traces.

When Yeo started this portrait in June 2021, his subject was still the Prince of Wales. The sittings continued after the death of Queen Elizabeth and the coronation last May. Sadness, self-possession and resolve each take their turn across a face that is subtly shifting. The hands are nervous and worn.

As for the butterfly, it feels almost Tudor. A symbol to be puzzled over and decoded. A nod to the King’s environmentalism? The transformation of a princely caterpillar into a kingly butterfly? A metaphor for the light touch of monarchy in the 21st century?

So, to honours. I award Yeo a knighthood for the face, an MBE for the hands, and off to the Tower with the background to await a grisly execution.

The eyes look kind.

Artistic license, r49.

The face is exceptionally accurate, without idealising. A huge success there.

It's rather odd.

he appears as if the emperor of Hell

R56 He is.

Is that a thing?

It’s very 60s!

I like that it shows his scary sausage fingers.

The palette is vomitous.

It's a comment on Charles's responsibility for Diana's death. He is awash in her blood.

The first time I saw it, I thought WTF? After viewing it several times again, I think it's compelling and well done.

Oooh it's like the cover of a collection of short horror stories from ~1970.

He could've danced all night!

Weird

R63 No silly, it's the blood of the colonizers' victims throughout history.

The gold standard.

Reminds me of the Jackie Kennedy portrait in that the clothing matches the background (colorwise).

[quote] The face is exceptionally accurate, without idealising. A huge success there.

Plays down the closeness of the eyes, IMO.

It resembles, and would be entirely appropriate for, his uncle, Lord Mountbatten.

I thought blue was the Royal color.

It's very Francis Bacon. I like it.

Francis Bologna

Who is the idiot posted the silly gifs?

R76

Now if you want a really bad portrait... check out this rendering that is so awful it might have been painted by her sister-in-law.

Am I the only one seeing a slight resemblance to Dexter's sister?

"Tatler’s new cover image – an “exclusive” portrait of the Princess of Wales by the British-Zambian artist Hannah Uzor – is egregiously, intolerably, jaw-hits-the-floor bad.

Whatever you made of Jonathan Yeo’s recently unveiled crimson portrait of King Charles III – which, as various wags observed, looked as if it had come pre-attacked with tomato soup by Just Stop Oil protesters – at least the damn thing resembled its subject.

But this? I’ve spent the past hour or so – time, incidentally, that I will never get back – scrutinising Uzor’s “likeness”, and, still, I cannot divine any flicker of resemblance between it and the woman it’s supposed to depict. At first, my editor thought it was meant to represent Meghan, Duchess of Sussex; its subject’s smirk made me think, initially, of Anne Robinson fronting The Weakest Link. "

The artist said he had a heart attack while painting this, which might have influenced his color choice.

And I had a heart attack upon viewing this abomination!

Reddit's conspiracy corners are all full of how the elite are not hiding it anymore, baohomet, baby blood etc.. I wonder if the artist was knew he was feeding this faction as well and not only the more obvious idea that even a kind emperor like Charles is the heir of the ones who caused suffering to many. I mean he's almost literally painted in blood. Anyway. Conspiracy nuts are having a feast over this.

It's bloody awful!

I DID NOT HELP WITH THAT PAINTING!

Charles has always been something of a modernizer so maybe he indicated that something unorthodox would be permissible. Since his reign is looking to be on the short side, he might want a portrait that stands out, that people spend more time viewing, whether it's out of appreciation or dismay.

I don;t think this portrait is that out of line with some of the stranger ones done of his mother (like this one by Justin Mortimer). What's unusual is that he had this as his first portrait--I would have expected a very traditional portrait as his first one, and then for the more experimental ones to come later.

Still ugly.

The butterfly is supposed to represent his mother Queen Elizabeth.

I like it.

There was an altered one on Reddit where they had skeleton hands that looked very real.

[quote] Looks like Camilla painted it with her fag.

That's a hilarious way to refer to Prince Edward!

Looks like finger painting. Yeah that kind.