Seeing Red

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The King had his portrait unveiled this week.

What did you think of it? Did it have you seeing red?

Opinions seem split. People say how well Jonathan Yeo has captured his features. Others are baffled by the pinky-red surreal background almost obliterating his army uniform. Some have commented on his hands, but he’s famous for his ‘sausage fingers’ in real life too. Finally, there’s a butterfly on his shoulder – what’s that about?

Shouldn’t his first official portrait as king have him sat on his throne in a nice sensible suit looking…’kingly’? Ought the artist be one renowned for portraying subjects in exquisite detail, drawing gasps of admiration through photograph-like rendering?

It’s easy to opine with ‘I like it’ or ‘I don’t like it’ without reflecting on why we actually think that. Our own attitudes and backgrounds will determine whether or not we relish how Yeo dared to shake things up with something fresh and contemporary. Or perhaps you simply dismissed it thinking ‘I don’t understand this modern art’. You may equally conclude that you do appreciate art and it just isn’t very good. Aside from art itself, to what extent has your personal opinion on the monarchy influenced whether you like the painting or not, do you think?

If only there was a simple method to help us appreciate what might be going on here (both in our own heads, as well as in the artist’s) without having to spend years at art school.

There is!

Unlocking the mystery

Over a decade ago, as an IT guy at the very beginning of my journey into art, the Open University taught me a really simple four-point plan for evaluating any work.

It’s called the ‘study diamond’. The idea is that you look at a work from four perspectives, forming a considered and informed view from them.

It’s super easy to remember and you can do it anywhere, with any creative work.

Fancy taking it for a test drive using the most talked about painting in town?

Let’s do it!

Using this approach, we consider the king’s painting with the following criteria in mind:

• Effects
• Technique 
• Context
• Meaning.

Effects

What does it make you feel when you see it? What’s your initial response? For me, the overwhelming redness conjures up thoughts of attention-grabbing fire, danger, blood, and passion. There’s a reason Stop signs and Ferarris are red.

That’s a bit of a turn-off for me – I’m naturally drawn to more earthy colours like browns and greens. So when I first saw the painting I felt quite challenged by it. What about you? What colours jarr with you? Ever opened your wardrobe and noticed what colours dominate it? 

All that blurryness too. It isn’t orthodox for a royal portrait to be so messy (apart from his face which peers through the red whorl in clear detail). I find myself quite intrigued by that (I know that I like subversion) but also quite confused.

Technique

It’s an oil painting on canvas. That might sound like an obvious choice. But that’s a statement in itself. Arguably it is the first thing that’s ‘traditional’ about it, you might say. It could have been done in watercolours, a medium that the King himself has been known to enjoy using. A photograph? There’s been a Royal patron of the Royal Photographic Society ever since Queen Victoria, after all. So that would be rather fitting.

Yeo has chosen to make the face and hands clear and detailed, while everything else is far less defined. Why is that? Did he run out of time and the background was a rush, or was it deliberate (clue – he had loads of time).

Then there’s a butterfly perched on his right shoulder. In black against the red, blurry background it is well defined and prominent. So it is clearly important to the meaning of the work.

Lastly, this is a big painting. It measures 8.5 feet by 6.5 feet in its frame. That makes it imposing. Just what you might associate with a monarch.

Context

Jonathan Yeo painted it. What’s he famous for? Figurative art. Maybe that gives us some clues. We need to pick up on Yeo’s visual language, and see what makes him tick. If you look at his other works, similar backgrounds have been employed before too.

Secondly, there’s the context of the ‘here and now’.What’s the world like right now? Lots of powerfully destructive things are occurring like wars, protests and climate change. This king has been given the job of ruling the nation at a particularly turbulent and divisive time. The troubles extend to his own family too: Harry, Megan and Oprah waging tv war against the Royal Family for starters. Illness for both himself and the Princess of Wales. A partying prime minister while his own father’s funeral was conducted. The death of his mother. Scottish nationalists and republicans both protested his assession to the throne, causing him to narrowly dodge an egg at one point.

And finally…Meaning

We’ve only scratched the surface here, we can of course explore all of these things much deeper, But this already gives us some fascinating insights in just a few moments, possibly enough from which to draw some conclusions about what the painting might be about. 

Before we go any further down this track, remember that the beautiful thing about art is that there isn’t a right or wrong answer. Your interpretation might be different to mine. That’s totally fine. Our own life experiences will play a part in how we sift the facts set down before us by Yeo. Roland Barthes called it the ‘death of the author’. This is where postmodernism hangs out. It validates your unique perspective in the overall appreciation of the painting. I’m so glad this is the case. Otherwise, we’d all like Chumbawamba.

For example, for me, climate change is a big consideration, and we know it is for the King too.  I also still chuckle at him losing his temper with the pen. So I immediately latch onto the red background as reflecting his passion for the perilous state of the planet he cares so much about and his own temper. Someone in Gaza or Ukraine might very easily read that same red background as symbolising the global conflicts which are the backdrop to his reign (in truth, it is probably intended to be all of these).

Butterflies make us think about transformation. From son and prince to king, in this case. waiting patiently for his destiny for 70-odd years. Why is it placed on his shoulder? hmm. What’s that saying about ‘standing on the shoulders of giants…’?

Final thoughts

I really like the painting. It is thought-provoking, engaging and says something about who he is. I see someone in it who cares about many things, set within a rapidly changing, dangerous world. It reflects the controversy of his own existence – republicanism vs. monarchy alongside the very present dangers of climate change, personal health and war. In one sense the red colour could well be blue – his ‘blue blood’ – representing our national pride and passion.

And at the centre of it all, there’s a man. A vulnerable human, with eyes, nose wrinkles and mouth just like us. I see the reality of his job, needing to be the calm face that reaches out to communicate a national vision, navigating the country through all this nasty red vortex stuff currently going on. His prominent hands represent the great responsibility he carries.

I could, of course, be entirely wrong. But that’s what I see, and that’s why I think it’s an impressive painting.

One of my motivations for setting up this blog was to show how photography and art can be appreciated without high-brow stuffiness. I hope this makes it feel more accessible. Use this simple technique the next time you scratch your head at a weird modern art installation to see if you can figure out what on earth is going on. Would love to hear your own reflections and interpretations of the painting in the comments below.