Another British royal painted into a corner

Portrait painting is an old art in England. No surprise there when you think of all the royals pictured, beginning in the Renaissance with the Tudor dynasty - often with capricious results.

Consider the family portrait of King Henry VIII, Jane Seymour, and little Prince Edward. Henry, known for having six wives in an effort to sire a male heir, is shown in his royal robes but with bared legs spread wide apart, as if ever ready to impregnate anyone who can help him get the job done.

I’m also thinking of portraitist Sir Joshua Reynolds who is known for lending a classical grandeur to his sitters. His Portrait of the Earl if Bellemont, Charles Coote, gussied up in robes of the Order of the Bath, is glorifying to the point of silliness.

Now comes the latest likeness of a British royal - Catherine, Princess of Wales, commissioned by the UK’s lifestyle magazine Tattler. Reader alert: my gauge for judging Catherine’s portrait goes like this: If you nail her features but fail to capture her public face, her way of being outside the palace, you come up short.

The artist for this portrait, Hannah Uzor, told the press that while the princess didn’t pose for the painting, she had her “strength and dignity” in mind. Such ways of being are not in the picture.

With her hands clasped below her waist, her posture looks faintly hunched, giving the impression of being sheepish, perhaps even fearful, but certainly self-conscious and nervous.

What throws this portrait off is what is missing – Catherine’s unalterable composure, invariably topped by a wide toothpaste smile. In the painting, her mouth is shut tight without even a half-smile getting through.

Alastair Sooke, chief art critic for UK’s The Daily Telegraph, doesn’t like Catherine’s portrait for a different reason,. Calling it “intolerably bad,” he faults its lifelessness, and compared it to a figure on top of a wedding cake.

The fact that Catherine is suffering from cancer makes his sneer about lifelessness callous. To me, the painting is not so much lifeless as it fails to capture her vibrancy. Her tiara has more sparkle.

Not that British portraiture is alone in its floundering. Paintings of America’s leaders and their spouses miss their mark, too. The official portrait of Michelle Obama at the National Portrait Gallery in D.C. misses by a wide margin.

At the unveiling at the White House, former President Obama said, “I want to thank Sharon Sprung for capturing everything I love about Michelle – her grace, her intelligence.” High praise for his wife, not the painting.

Missing is the accomplished woman, the graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School. Instead, you see Michelle lolling on a divan arrayed in a billowing, off-the-shoulder, loudly colored dress. If the artist captured anything, it’s her bare skin, not her smarts.

The Whitehouse’s official portrait of Barack Obama doesn’t serve him well, either, beginning with the odd void of painted white in the background. The blank space surrounding the former president, suggests he’s a person without significance.

As if to push the point, Obama is posed with his hands in his pockets, furthering the impression that he’s a ne’er-do-well.

The artist, Robert McCurdy, explained in an interview that he left the background empty to avoid distracting from the image. That might have worked if the image offered something to focus on – some gesture, some facial expression.

McCurdy was quoted justifying his work this way: "I don't think of my paintings as portraits. I think of them as paintings with people in them."

Sometimes artists should stay quiet. That goes double for Hannah Uzor’ calling her picture of Catherine “a portrait of strength and dignity.”

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