Kate Middleton on Canvas: An Abstract Take on the Royal Wedding Portrait

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Kate Middleton, left, and Prince William, right, don't look as regal as they normally do in this painting by Greg Herzog.

Photo courtesy of Greg Herzog

Is it a stroke of genius, or a squiggly mess?

Greg Herzog, a behavior specialist, has made what he says is the first contemporary painting of Kate Middleton and Prince William. For many it may look like a psychedelic ink blot spun on a Lazy Susan. But a great deal of thought has gone into its creation. For years Herzog has been concerned with the idea of what people would look like if they were represented by a color or a series of colors. So, as he explains on his website, he devised a mathematical equation “where X# of points represent the makeup of a subject and each degree of expression within the context of each point is color coded and weighted accordingly.” NewsFeed won’t pretend to have a firm grasp on that, but we can confirm that Herzog holds the trademark for his COLOR CODING DNA technique.

(More on TIME.com: Let them eat Kate! The royal wedding portrait made of carrots, gravy and turkey meat)

According to Herzog, the portrait of the fiancĂ©e formerly known as Waity Katie mixes, among other colors, a shade of green that suggests she is goal-oriented (land that prince!) with a light blue that indicates she is opinionated (Westminster Abbey, not the village hall, please!). William is made up of blue which shows “good judgment” and black which suggests “willpower.”

As any student of art history knows, a portrait doesn’t need to convey a likeness—and that must help Herzog stick by his creation. “Like an ink blot test, the truth is in the eye of the beholder,” Herzog tells NewsFeed via e-mail. “You will see what you want to see and you can say what you want to say, but no one has ever represented individuals or subjects in the way that I have. There is the aesthetic value, whether you like it or not, and then there is the authentic value.”

Let’s just hope Kate looks a little more put together on April 29 than she does on this canvas.

(More on TIME.com: See pictures of Kate Middleton)