Welcome Estelle.

Thank you Kevin.

Let's have a look at this shall we?

What did you, what do you make of it?

It's very red.

It's very red.

And it's very odd I think for a royal portrait and actually as I said earlier rather flattering on the thin finger front.

Yes because Charles always comments doesn't he about his fat fingers.

Sausage fingers yeah.

Yeah yeah yeah.

But you know famously Rembrandt said he could only paint sausage fingers he painted them so badly and Titian's favourite colour was red.

Apparently he used to mix his own blood in it to make it redder.

But you know what's the point of a royal portrait?

Well obviously we want to try and get some sort of likeness.

You know we've sort of got there.

We want it to be elegant, stylish, sophisticated, authoritative.

Queen Camilla likes it.

He does look a little bit grey, a little bit desolate, a bit washed out and worn out and that's maybe how he's feeling.

To me it sort of looks as though he's paid a visit to Dante's City of Fire or perhaps standing in front of a Rothko painting.

It's very strong, very garish, a bit gaudy.

It's over life-size and we see the king standing, posing with his sword in his hand.

He only had four sittings or four standings if you like so he had to keep very still.

But did you notice the little butterfly landing on his shoulder?

No.

Right okay so there's a little butterfly as you look at the painting on the left hand side.

Now the little butterfly is just emerging from this swampy sea of red but it symbolises metamorphosis and rebirth.

If you think about the butterfly from cocoon to butterfly so it's referencing a monarch who's only just recently become king and grown and it's also there to symbolise the king's interest in the environment and nature.

So he's telling a story.

It's a much more modern portrait than we're used to although some of the late Queen Elizabeth's portraits, I don't know if you remember, well let's not talk about the Rolf Harris one.

No let's not.

Yeah you know with the Mona Lisa they said that the eyes follow you around the room but with Rolf Harris's portrait of the queen her teeth followed you around the room.

Anyway Andy Warhol painted the late queen, did silkscreen images.

So you know we're getting used to contemporary artists having a go at the monarchy and Jonathan you know he's in his 50s and he's one of the most in-demand portraitists so whether you particularly like it or not sometimes just buying a name and he's known for his mix of the traditional and experimental.

Personally I think there is rather a lot of red in it.

Even I noticed that.

I'll tell the photo.

We haven't got sound on this but I think he you know I'm kind of imagining he went Christ.

Yeah well you know don't forget as well he's an accomplished watercolorist.

So you know he's good at painting as was his father the Duke of Edinburgh and of course we go right back to Queen Victoria.

We know loved drawing and painting together with Albert.

It was Jo's painted Queen Camilla when she was the Duchess of Cornwall, the late Prince Philip, David Attenborough, Sir David Attenborough, Nicole Kidman, Tony Blair and also I don't know if you know but he did a really controversial portrait of George W Bush.

Thank God he didn't do this this time with King Charles but he entitled it Bush which may give you a clue because Jo was awarded permission to paint a commission to paint the US President Bush and then it was withdrawn.

So Jo decided to create an image anyway and he made this collage portrait from little snippets of cutouts from porn magazines.

It didn't go down very well.

I hope he hasn't done that with the King but why so red?

I mean you know it is a very unusual kind of royal portrait.

I mean apart from his big face you know protruding from this sea of redness.

Yeah there's not much kind of definition there is there?

No so it's very red because the military outfit is red.

So Jo wanted to sort of show King Charles was part of his uniform and standing there with pride and also you know at times Charles wants to disappear into the background and just be alone with his beloved Camilla, darling Camilla as he refers to her but also you know he does have to have a public face and the public face does look a little bit grey and a little bit statuesque and that may be because that's part of the mask that he has to wear for his day job.

And in terms of the history of royal portraits, do artists, I mean I don't know whether you would describe this portrait as flattering.

As I say he's a bit flattering on the finger front because the fingers are much slimmer than they are in real life.

I mean his so I don't know if this portrait is particularly flattering but artists through history have tended to sort of be rather nice to their subjects in terms of the portraits they produce because we are after all talking about royalty.

Am I right?

Absolutely yeah you are right and don't forget that if we go right back in history hundreds of years past before the invention of the camera when now you know we see themselves taking selfies of each other to with each other to put up but if you go back hundreds of years the monarchs had to manage their image and how the royal line would be seen through the power of portraits so they had to be very flattering.

Nobody sort of wants a warts and all and don't forget as well people at the beginning they wouldn't have had the ability to see the people in person or on TV.

It would be seen in a painting or they would be seen in a public sculpture or maybe the coin in their purse you know with their profile and that would be it so they'd have to sort of get a generic likeness that they'd recognise somebody so it may even go a little bit towards a caricature.

Yeah absolutely so I'm just wondering you said that the king sat four times for Jonathan Yeo so perhaps he sat sort of in a vat full of tomato sauce hence this picture seems to be the only explanation for it but I'm sure a worthy addition to the gallery of art that the royal family possess.

Great to have you on board fantastic critique as always thank you Estelle.

Estelle love it there the people's arts critic.

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