It took just three and a half months and two sittings for Scottish-born artist Paul Emsley to sap the life and joy out of Duchess of Cambridge, Kate Middleton, who appears to have been aged considerably in the first official portrait painted to commemorate the handing over of her hollow vestige to The Royal Family; almost hollow, that is, were it not for the dormant Mountbatten spawn that lies in waiting, Rosemary’s Baby style.
At least that’s what British art critics and The Internet would have you believe (I actually don’t mind the photo-realist depiction of Kate; she’s human, has bags, a pregnant glow, so what?) after the Middleton’s Royal #non-selfie was unveiled overnight at London’s National Portrait Gallery to mixed reviews and these faces:
A keen student of art history at St Andrews, where she met her baby daddy, Middleton praised her perennial likeness as being “just amazing, I thought it was brilliant.” Speaking in the clipped phrases of someone who just received the worst haircut ever, Prince William deemed the portrait “beautiful, absolutely beautiful.”
Art critic for The Daily Mail, Robin Simon, called the painting “rotten“, while Sunday Times critic, Waldemar Januszczak, has likened the portrait to “a giant polaroid. Like she went into a photo booth and had that picture taken and blown up to a huge size.”
To which all the youths of London responded, “Well cool; where can I have that done, innit?“
Defending his artistic choices, including the eye bags on which he would not comment but everyone else has seen fit to, Emsley said, “The Duchess explained that she would like to be portrayed naturally – her natural self – as opposed to her official self. She struck me as enormously open and generous and a very warm person. After initially feeling it was going to be an unsmiling portrait I think it was the right choice in the end to have her smiling – that is really who she is.
If a subject has a lot of wrinkle lines or a distinctive chin or nose or something like that it is easier to get a likeness, but when you are working with someone whose face is just a lovely face it is harder.”
The Royal Couple saw the painting in a private 10 minute viewing before they were distracted by Mario Testino’s official portraits of the extended Royal Family, probably because they featured Kate Moss and/or baby oil.
‘This is an Art Attack!’
Photos via WPA Pool/Getty
