When King Charles' latest portrait was unveiled, the artwork earned everything from praise to ridicule for its surprising and eye-catching portrayal of the King artistically bathed in red.

Shortly after, a new portrait of the Princess of Wales was unveiled as the July cover of Tatler magazine, which similarly got onlookers around the world talking all over again. But in a time when the monarchy feels less relevant than ever for many in the commonwealth, why do these paintings elicit such strong reactions?

Erin Finley is an artist and instructor at the Ontario College of Art and Design. She joins Commotion host Elamin Abdelmahmoud to talk about details from the portraits worth examining, and what the strong reaction to them says about the divided times we live in.

Elamin: I'm going to ask you a very subjective question to start: what do you think of Jonathan Yeo's portrait of King Charles?

Erin: I love it. I think it's so punk rock. Red, in this large a quantity behind King Charles, really calls to mind a line from Macbeth about reckoning with guilt: "Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood / Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather / The multitudinous seas incarnadine, / Making the green one red." So for me there's an implied reckoning around things like colonialism, the death of Diana, all manner of things.

The red, too, is loaded with a kind of autumnal or sunset energy to it. This is a king in the sunset of his life. This is perhaps a monarchy in the sunset or the autumn of its time. And of course, red is an English color. They are the red coats. Jonathan Yeo has said that it was a really intentional decision to have King Charles wear the Welsh Guard uniform, which of course is red. And really, in this juxtaposition we have that butterfly — a delicate, pretty, sort of feminine symbol — fluttering behind King Charles. For me, it's interesting because it might represent Charles's feminine side, or maybe it represents feminine figures in his life now gone. I'm thinking, the Queen, his mother, who is larger than life, or his first wife, also larger than life. Interestingly, Jonathan Yeo has said that it was actually King Charles' suggestion to include that butterfly.

Elamin: I like the idea that you were able to look at this image and say, "Hey, maybe there is some reckoning to be done, and I can read that into the colour." I agree with you. I love it, and I had some of the same interpretations.

In the other corner, we have comments like the Guardian's art critic, Jonathan Jones, who described it as: "A psychedelic sea of lurid reds and a clunking monarch butterfly cannot save this superficially observed and carelessly executed bland banality." … Erin, people have not really pulled back their comments at all. There's also a similar reaction to Hannah Uzor's new portrait of the Princess of Wales, which was just revealed. Why do you think these portraits provoke these really intense emotional reactions?

Erin: Because the reach of the royal family is so extensive, and because the royal family are both revered and reviled, any representation of them is going to elicit strong reactions. They aren't a neutral entity. They are also the nominal figurehead of colonialism, the impacts of which are still felt today.

Now, Princess Catherine has cancer. This also kind of complicates our reception of the artwork. Hannah Uzor, the artist, has indicated that Princess Catherine's video footage of herself talking about her cancer diagnosis did inform the work. For me, that rings true. I know the image is criticized for not looking a lot like Princess Catherine, but it does kind of channel a real innocence. There's an admiration and a portrayal of a loving mother. It's a portrayal for me of a mother with cancer. She has an angelic quality in this artwork. Her dress is white. It goes right to the ground, which means we don't see where Princess Catherine's body touches the earth, and it gives her a kind of preternatural quality where she transcends and supersedes human form. So there's a little more complexity to it, I think, than it just being a flat-looking portrait.

Elamin: So there's always the temptation to talk about "good" or "bad," but I think to me the more interesting question is, is a portrait effective? And so to that end, what is the thing that makes a portrait work? What should we look for?

Erin: Let's start with what it doesn't have to do. It doesn't have to be flattering, it doesn't have to be realistic, and it doesn't have to present the person in a way that we were expecting. What it does have to do is be honest. This means it should be true to the artist's vision, in whatever way they see the subject in context — whether that is historically or geographically. So an effective portrait will generate discussion about the artwork and about the subject. I'm reminded of Oscar Wilde, a line from The Picture of Dorian Gray, which of course is about a portrait. The line is, "When critics disagree, the artist is in accord with himself." So being in accord with oneself as an artist means being true to your vision, sticking to it.