With the unveiling of the first official portrait of Kate Middleton at the National Portrait Gallery in London on Friday morning, we learned the secret to Middleton’s flawless looks. It appears that while Middleton looks better with each passing day, her portrait will slowly decay until visitors to the National Portrait Gallery find a decrepit old woman staring back at them from a gilded frame. From the looks of things, Middleton’s portrait has been taking a beating in her stead for approximately ten years.
Artist Paul Emsley, who is responsible for the atrocity portrait, explains in a video for the Mirror, “The fact she is a beautiful woman is for an artist difficult. In the end I think what I tried to do really was to convey something about her warmth and her smile.” Emsley, who worked on the portrait for three months, says that his perception for the image changed once he met Middleton. He tells the Mirror, “She struck me as enormously open and generous actually. And a very warm person to meet so I, after initially feeling it was going to be an unsmiling portrait, I think actually it was the right choice in the end to have her smiling because that’s really who she is I think.”
While Middleton reportedly called the likeness “amazing,” and Emsley notes, “I think, from what I can see this morning, she’s delighted with it. I’m very happy about that,” critics have been less polite. (Not to mention, Middleton’s face upon seeing the reveal, pictured above, doesn’t seem to say “amazing” to us.) Waldemar Januszczak, art critic for the Sunday Times, tells ABC News, “Seriously, as a concept, what is it? It’s like a giant Polaroid. Like she went into a photo booth and had that picture taken and blown up to a huge size, it would look more or less the same, wouldn’t it?”
ABC News’ royal contributor (what a title!) Victoria Arbiter adds, “To me it’s just utterly lifeless. There doesn’t seem to be any of her vitality, her sparkle, her youth. There’s none of the mischief behind her eyes, none of the light in her eyes. It just comes across as a little flat, lifeless and dull … She just seems to have lines that aren’t there and bags under her eyes.”
Unfortunately, we can’t help but agree. What can we say, at least her hair looks nice?
Follow Abbey Stone on Twitter @abbeystone
[Photo Credit: Wenn (2)]
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