Lucian Freud: Works since 1970
I want paint to work as flesh, I know my idea of portraiture came from dissatisfaction with portraits that resembled people. I would wish my portraits to be of the people, not like them. Not having the look of the sitter, being them. As far as I am concerned the paint is the person. I want it to work for me just as flesh does.
-Lucian Freud, quoted by John Russell
Grandson of the famous Austrian physician Sigmund Freud, Lucien was born in Berlin in 1922. In 1933, Freud’s family moved to England, and since then he has spent most of his life living in the London area. He has stayed away from formal artistic education, and has resisted association with artist-friendly groups and neighborhoods most of his life. His romantic life was often the subject of gossip, and had been married twice. Lucian seems to have inherited the elder Sigmund’s desire to look inside his subjects. He was also heavily influenced by the works of Francis Bacon.
Lucian Freud strives to avoid ‘shallow’ representation, instead concentrating on capturing the essence of his subjects in layer upon layer of oil paint. He shows a keen understanding of the mechanical support structure just below the surface of the human form, over which he drapes translucent layers of flesh, glowing as if imbued with the essence of life itself. In Night Portrait (1985-86) (Fig. 1) the bones and muscles of which the figure is built. Notice the prominent great trochanter and iliac crest and the angle of the pelvis itself, as well as the treatment of the model’s knees and the muscles and bones of her lower legs. In fact almost every part of her form telegraphs the form inside.
His clothed figures often show his attention to form-within-form. In Annabel Sleeping (1987-88) (Fig. 2) we can feel (and almost see) the model’s entire form just underneath the surface of her robe. Freud’s treatments of shade, especially in the fold’s of the robe’s cloth, are exceptional. With an application of color almost after Cézanne, he captures form in what seems a quick gesture of shade. Of course, given the amount of time Freud spends on each work, those quick strokes are undoubtedly carefully crafted applications of paint. For the same reason, it is clear why Annabel finds it so easy to sleep.
In other works, he takes our expectations and exploits them to generate visual interest. Two Men (1987-88) (Fig. 3) seems to be drawn from four or more perspectives. Compositional and substantive elements, including the nude and clothed model, the clothed man’s hand on the nude figure’s leg, their away-facing faces, and the fact that they are the same model in separate sittings, create narrative conflicts absent from his more situational-austere works.
He also manipulates the structure he knows so well, especially the shape of faces, in his portraits. He bends and stretches the jaw and cheek, often on the right side of the face, in an expressive gesture that could not have been in front of him while he was painting. (Figures to be determined.) He exploits our built-in facial recognition circuitry, so that we may not easily dismiss the face as just another. We are almost forced to explore the form he has chosen to render in greater detail than we might have otherwise, if only to understand what makes us uncomfortable.
His charcoal drawings as well as his etchings use a language far removed from the glowing light of his oil paintings. Though his 1985 Lord Goodman and 1986 Head of a Man suggest some of his normal depth of attention to character, they seem to speak more superficially. One sees a cursory exploration of a subject, perhaps to be explored to greater depths in a later painting. One cannot say for certain, as examples of such studies are not as readily available as they are for artists like Edward Hopper. However, he uses a technique in his etchings that bears mention. He draws lines indicating several forms, such as muscle or bone, then indicates shade with lines crossing forms, suggesting layers of color and shade we do not see in his charcoals.
So what can we take away from Freud’s artwork? Most applicable of Freud’s impressive skills is the use of underlying form. His works are not perfect representations, yet read as more living and feeling than a photograph. More important than perfect proportion, then, can be the understanding of what it is we draw.
No discussion of Freud would be complete without seeing The Painter’s Mother Dead (1989) (Fig. #), his charcoal sketch of his dead mother. What would his grandfather have to say about this piece?
Figures
- http://members.nbci.com/scatt/freud_femalenudes.html
- 71, 72, 76, 84
I'm still working on finding good images online.