Lucian Freud (1922 – 2011) was a British painter, widely regarded as one of the most important figurative painters of the 20th and 21st centuries. Born in Berlin, he was a grandson of the famed psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud and moved to Britain in 1933 to escape the rise of Nazism.
Freud’s work is best characterized by its intense and unforgiving realism. He is best known for his thickly impastoed portrait and figure paintings, where he often depicted people in all their raw, unvarnished humanity. His subjects, be they friends, family, or lovers, are portrayed with an unflinching honesty, sometimes bordering on the brutal, often depicted in stark, unsettling settings.
A major influence on Freud’s style was the objective realism of the Northern Renaissance. However, his unique approach to portraiture was influenced not just by art history but by his own complex personal relationships and keen observations of the human form.
His painting technique was meticulous. He often used hog-hair brushes and would sometimes spend years on a single painting, building up layers of paint in a way that gave his works a distinct, almost sculptural quality.
Artists like Francis Bacon, a close friend and contemporary, shared some thematic similarities with Freud, especially in their unromantic approach to the human figure. However, while Bacon’s work is more abstract and distorted, Freud’s work remains rooted in realism.
In summary, Lucian Freud revolutionized portraiture with his relentless pursuit of the truth, however unflattering it might be. His commitment to depicting the rawness and vulnerability of the human body and psyche has cemented his legacy as one of the most influential painters of his era.
Useful Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucian_Freud
https://www.wikiart.org/en/lucian-freud
