What do you think Winston?
Modern the portrait may be, but it ain’t Art.
Burn of the Day
- Donald R. McClarey
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 43 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
Drapers Hall is a shortened name for a livery companies guild. It is a charitable institution founded in the middle ages. I like the painting. It is a good likeness of King Charles. The Queen likes it. Do the members of the Hall like it is the important question.
The portrait is impressionistic. The color is startling but may imitate the livery colors I would like to see how it fits in the hallway or room where it is hung.
Burn of the day.
I assumed that the title of the portrait was Burn of the Day.
If eco-protesters ever threw soup on it, how would we even know?
Terrible. He is in Hell.
Wretched.
It seems to me to perfectly encapsulate the current era in that you have evidence of potential talent and technique that gets buried under a morass of unmeaning reflective of the nihilism of the age.
And by “unmeaning” I don’t mean that there’s not a meaning here. I don’t know the intent, but it seems that the figure drearily blurring into the chaotic background save for his defining features (which are also somewhat ill-defined) is perhaps meant as a critique of the moribund nature of the office, in that the contrast creates a leprous visage. It seems the artist possesses the skills to create something that aims more at the beautiful; after all, there is some evidence of technique and the figure is fairly well executed, even if the impressionistic style isn’t one’s cup of tea. But since it doesn’t I am led to conclude that there is an anti-meaning lurking in the background.
I don’t know what other work Damian Thompson is referencing (and don’t care enough to bother looking it up), but I’d disagree that this is instantly memorable. It is striking in its initial impression, but since it doesn’t aim at the beautiful it is incapable of transcending that initial impression or the limited vision of its age which is why our era is largely devoid of great works of art. It may, however, be the perfect portrait befitting the Tik Tok generation.
The butterfly is a nice touch 😆
I suspect Mr. Thompson is being sarcastic
So this will remain as “the” Kings portrait in the history books. Woke.
A portrait, particularly in an age of photographs, ought to be a statement about the inner man. That is what I think Churchill (rightly) objected to in the clip.
Here, I do not understand the statement about the inner man. I feel that it is more likely a statement about the man doing the painting and is therefore not a great portrait.
Reminds me of Van Gogh in Flames and this makes me think of madness. Not a good reference for an official portrait.
Charles is a bit of a milksop. Others if his line would not have accepted it.
Excellent point.
Artist Pietro Anngoni was commissioned in 1955 by the Fishmoners Guild to paint a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II. The painting was very well liked by the British population and Commonwealth countries. The likeness was used every where in tea shops, homes, government buildings, embassies and on paper money and stamps of Commonwealth countries.
I doubt this portrait of Charles will have the same reception. Enlarged I didn’t see anything subliminal in the busy background. The butterfly is interesting. Does it mean that with the death of his mother and his subsequent coronation the King has come out of his cocoon? Prince Charles has always (to me) seemed weak and woke with few points on being a family man. He is now the leader of the Church of England and if the news reports are true, has a spiritual side to him. Maybe it is old age or a cancer diagnosis.
What will the critics say about Charles first official portrait? One definition of a critic from the Daily Telegraph by Albert Richardson, architect and President of the Royal Academy, ” Critics are owls, bats and fleas. They are owls because they hoot, bats because they see things upside down, and fleas because they nip.”
This painting makes the King look like he’s in hell. Maybe having called himself the Defender of the Faiths that’s what will happen (God forbid!). And maybe such a painting would have been appropriate for his predecessors, murderous King Henry VIII and Elizabeth I. Heck, what you see is the fruit of the English so-called Reformation.
Doomed House of Windsor.