Lucian Freud is one of the most remarkable artists of his generation.
There have been numerous tributes to his life and work since his death last July. Each has helped to define his reputation as an artist that contributed to contemporary painting an intense, unashamed and unidealised depiction of the physical essence of the human animal. In an age when art was rejecting traditional naturalistic representation, Freud committed his life to portraiture, resisting the surrounding interest in Pop, Op and Abstract Expressionism. By painting his friends from all walks of life he pursued unfettered realism, creating memorable images that are both astounding and uncomfortable.
A recent BBC documentary, Lucian Freud: Painted Life, gave a picture of the man behind the works: a troubled individual who felt more affinity to horses than to other humans, who fathered at least 14 children, and who was constantly plagued by gambling debts. Freud energetically pursued painting until his death, searching for the fulfilment of his personal and artistic ambitions.
Hard to look at
A major exhibition has been mounted at the National Portrait Gallery, highlighting the incredible reverence which Freud’s approach pays to the particularities of human and animal bodies; he renders every eyelash and shade of skin with meticulous accuracy. In doing so, he exposes intimate details to the viewer with no excuse or introduction. This makes the exhibition hard to look at; in the later works especially, his models are not nude but naked. Big Sue, Leigh Bowery, Lucian’s various lovers — they all appear completely bare. The huge canvases confront the viewer with inch after inch of uncovered skin, each part revealing a secret history of the model’s contact with the environment around them.
The grandson of the famous Sigmund Freud, Lucian had reason enough to delve beneath the surface of human consciousness. But it is the accidence of their physical existence rather than the essence of the individual consciousness that captures his imagination: ‘I paint people not because of what they are like, not exactly in spite of what they are like, but how they happen to be’. His final paintings show figures drowning in paint, almost deformed under the boils created on their skin by countless layers of carefully mixed flesh tones: ‘As far as I am concerned the paint is the person I want’.
Dog and man as equals
This vision is ultimately a dehumanising one that denies any notion of personality and presents humans as mere animals. The exhibition included his unfinished last work, on show for the first time. Portrait of the Hound shows Freud’s assistant David Dawson with his dog Eli, and the two creatures are painted as absolute equals. Some may retort that this is simply part of an intense and indiscriminate attempt to capture a living presence, but this does not account for his constant tendency to view humans as beasts: ‘I am inclined to think of humans [...] if they’re dressed, as animals dressed up.’
Others find in Freud’s portraits an intense awareness of individual relationships; the National Portrait Gallery’s exhibition notes describe their ‘psychological drama and unrelenting observational intensity’. The act of being subjected to close unblinking scrutiny for hours on end, day after day, requires of the model an incredible level of trust and patience. Freud’s realism seems conscious of this, containing within it his personal response to the sitter. Yet many of his models describe his gaze as clinical, like a surgeon considering a body on his theatre table; a cold, unflinching stare which in some cases undermined the relationship itself.
Sense of futility
It is not that these paintings ignore personality altogether. Freud does register what is unknown to him about the sitter — whatever goes on beneath the flesh — but he presents it as ultimately unknowable. This lends to his paintings a sense not of mystery but of futility. It is this sense of frustrating mystery that eventually means he can find no happiness in his work. However detailed the final product, it cannot capture the spark of life which animates the human form: ‘A moment of complete happiness never occurs in the creation of a work of art. The promise of it is felt in the act of creation but disappears towards the completion of the work. For it is then the painter realises that it is only a picture he is painting. Until then he had almost dared to hope the picture might spring to life’.
Lucian Freud Portraits is at the National Portrait Gallery, London from February 9 to May 27 2012. Lucian Freud: Painted Life was first shown on the BBC on February 18 2012.
Rachel Thorpe works as an events planner and freelance writer in Cambridge. More of her articles are available at http://www.rachelthorpe.com
