Lucian Freud...
5:32 p.m.12/20/22 - To celebrate one hundred years since the birth of the British artist, exhibitions of the work of Lucian Freud (1922-2011) are taking place all over Europe. The National Gallery of London is currently presenting a retrospective of almost one hundred paintings made troughout seven decades and dedicated, fundamentally, to the human body and, in particular, to nudes. However, we cannot fail to mention the number of portraits and self-portraits on display.
The exhibition is divided into various sections, organized more or less chronologically, and in all of them it is impossible not to focus our gaze on the craftsmanship of the paintings. We discover the excessive materiality, which causes a relief that, observed from a certain distance, accentuates the flesh. This results in an intensification of reality, which the artist obtains thanks to a deep examination of the human body. But this technique only belongs to his last period and especially to the depiction of nudes. On the other hand, in the self-portraits of the first years, the brushstrokes are quick and the framing is photographic (most usual at the time). He also add figures, landscapes or objects in the background.
Reflection with Two Children (Self-portrait), by Lucian Freud (1965)
Technique: oil on canvas
In conclusion: Freud's mastery lies in presenting us or making us live the experience of being in front of a human body without clothes and on a monumental scale, where the flesh and the psyche of the sitter overwhelm us. As he approached the end of his life, his paintings reflected a greater emphasis on the relationship between paint and body (flesh). And already as an old man, he transcends the liveliness of the flesh to incorporate the concept of death in them.
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