Portraiture rules, Part 1

Emily Catrice | Saatchi Gallery Magazine | 10th June 2017

Semiotics – the study of signs and symbols – is used to analyse a portrait of Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge. Her choice of a (very costly) painting rather than a (costly) photograph “demonstrates her assimilation into the royal family as only wealth can”. The image itself communicates “a modern monarchy consciously keen to assert itself as less ostentatious, yet as a powerful unfading institution nonetheless.”