Kate Portrait Unveiled

HRH The Duchess of Cambridge
Paul Emsley, 2012

The first official portrait of the Duchess of Cambridge was unveiled today receiving disappointing comments from critics. HRH The Duchess of Cambridge, painted by Paul Emsley, will be displayed at the National Portrait Gallery as part of the galleries Contemporary Collections.

The duchess only sat for the artist twice, the rest of it Mr Emsley worked from a series of photographs he had taken. The portrait took several months, achieved through building thin layers of oil and glazes on canvas.

The National Portrait Gallery, which the duchess is patron of, commissioned the work while the gallery director and duchess selected the artist together.

Kate had requested to be portrayed as her natural rather than official self. The artist therefore chose to depict her simplistically, focusing on 'the landscape of the face, the way in which light and shadow fall across the forms.'

Kate has been quoted as saying it's 'amazing' - though I can't really imagine her turning round and slating it, however The Sunday Times art critic Waldemar Januszczak holds a rather different view, saying the work is a disappointing and ordinary portrayal. He believes portraits must have two things, a likeness to the sitter and a conception that means something, both of which the artist has failed in. Kate is supposedly smiling though her eyes and mouth seem mismatched - he finishes by saying it looks like a giant polaroid!

Mark Hudson of the Telegraph shared equally negative views calling it 'laboured sub-photorealism,' he even went as far as to say 'If Kim Jong un, had such a portrait painted, we'd mock the pitiful taste of foreign despots.' He believes the artist has captured what the public want to see - the misty eyes, puckered mouth, coils of dark hair in a 'style' they will like. You would never think from this painting that he had actually seen her in the flesh.

To be honest whatever the artist had produced we probably would have complained about, isn't that what happened when Lucian Freud's portrait of the Queen was unveiled? Sneering at Royal portraits seems to be part of British culture of late.