The purpose of art is to inspire and fuel discourse, and the recently unveiled portrait of King Charles has certainly done that. The current monarch of the United Kingdom was crowned last year, and it is a common tradition for painters to sit down with heads of state to create a personal portrait of them. On May 14, the portrait of King Charles, by artist Jonathan Yeo, was unveiled to the public, and while some art critics wanted to debate the portrait’s heavy use of red and the symbology within it, other people decided to just make some banging memes out of it to make. the painting.
There is a very obvious comparison to Soulsborne games. FromSoftware designers seem to love nothing more than decorating a crumbling castle with huge, ominous portraits. (Actually, some FromSoftware members might like this poison swamps slightly more than ominous paintings, but it’s debatable.)
this is the kind of stuff you see hanging on top of a man’s throne in Elden Ring and that guy’s name is ‘Morgorem, Bloodrot Baron’ and he lives in the ‘Sanguine Temple of Decay’ https://t.co/jUn0Fs77wk
— RED (@DemonfireTanto) May 14, 2024
Of course, a painting this ominous could fit into a whole range of settings. Consider this mod for Dishonored, which allows you to steal King Charles’s portrait in between murdering Corvo’s many enemies. The image would also fit nicely into the original Fate, as this mock-up proves.
Personally, I’m a fan of this Disco Elysium interpretation of the portrait made by Stivkun on X.
The portrait can also be easily replaced in films. Ghostbusters 2‘S painting of Vigo the Carpathians here is a simple example. Or the painting could fit neatly into its surroundings The shining, a notoriously disturbing hotel. Some artists even take the style of the portrait – which I personally find striking and evocative – and apply it to other fictional characters.
The painting has inspired much genuine critical discourse about its style, message and the monarchy itself. But I’m an easily amused magpie, and I love seeing moments like these reinterpreted through a crazy lens. These memes are short and fleeting, but for a moment they are beautiful.