LUCIEN FREUD - a dissent?

Not long ago I had the opportunity to see a large exhibit of Lucien Freud’s paintings at the Tate Gallery in London. I found it interesting but disturbing. The painter’s portraits and self-portraits were outstanding by any standard. There was also a picture of someone’s backyard, full of junk and weeds, in one of the less-distinguished London neighborhoods. The way he rendered this scene was reminiscent of Monet's version of the locomotives of his day; these were smelly, noisy machines emitting plentiful clouds of steam mixed with ashes. Somehow Monet made them appear mysterious and attractive. The talent of Freud to make the ordinary attractive is further shown in “Two Plants” (1977/80) apparently done outdoors featuring a very green broad-leafed plant juxtaposed with one having many small leaves of a variety of different muted colours. Again, the picture of a factory in North London (1972) has charm although it is architecturally uninteresting. In addition to the Tate exhibit, I saw a one-hour retrospective of Freud on TVO, the Ontario provincial educational TV network. Some of his paintings are also found on the Internet.

But Freud is most famous for his nudes, both female and male and and he is considered by some as the most important figurative painter alive. I am not surprised that he is famous. He has succeeded in making the Nude neither erotic nor beautiful, and this is revolutionary. Kenneth Clark, who is best known for his TV lectures but who was actually a highly respected academic, and for a time the director of the National Gallery in London, gave a lecture entitled “The Nude (A Study in Ideal Form).” This was published in 1953 by Princeton University Press together with many illustrations. In it we see the importance of the Nude in the depiction of gods and goddesses, free of the prudery of the Christian Church fathers. We also see the interest in the human form during the Renaissance. Clark says that the Nude usually has some erotic component. But from reading the lecture and looking at the illustrations, one can see that the human body, particularly of young men and women, has been considered as beautiful for a very long time, as are other natural objects such as many birds, animals and flowers.

Although the depiction of naked human beings was somewhat circumscribed until the 20th century and the arrival of Egon Schiele (1890-1918) as an example, there have been many paintings of female nudes in Western art including those of Titian (1488-1576), Goya (1746- 1828) and Ingres (1780-1867).

Amadeo Modigliani (1884-1920) painted many nudes, slightly abstract in style, and they are all beautiful and intended to be so. With the arrival of pornography as a readily accessible item of international commerce, there is now understandably very little interest in primarily erotic paintings by serious artists. The Freud nudes are not erotic because the male and female genitalia are purposely displayed, which is straightforward in the case of the male, and more cumbersome in the case of the female nude models. In the case of “Painter and Model” (1986) the female model, fully dressed, stands at the left and the male is on a couch on his back with his legs open. “Man Posing” (1985), shows another man lying on a couch on his back with his legs open. “Naked Girl Asleep” (1968) displays a woman with the musculature of a stevedore. In “Blond Girl on a Bed” (1987), the model has her legs open, there are red splotches on her face and her skin is exceptionally ugly.

No commentary on Freud’s nudes should ignore “After Cezanne” (1999-2000), which depicts a rather messy interior with a mattress on the floor, an upended chair, and a few stairs, leading off to the right. Freud’s painting is related to “Afternoon in Naples” (1872-1875) by Cezanne. In Freud’s painting, a man is half leaning on his side with his legs open, and a buxom woman is sitting with her back to the viewer and her buttocks resting on the calf of the man. In the background is another slightly overweight long-haired nude woman carrying a small tray. The picture is owned by the National Gallery in Australia and has provoked speculation that it is about alienation and other contemporary problems.

I regret the abandonment of beauty in these nudes – many have unattractive skin and their flesh looks somewhat chiseled. But even if you do not like the nudes, there can be no doubt of Freud’s talent as shown in the portraits and his other works.

Self-portrait : Lucien Freud

Two Plants

Nude : Igon Schiele

November 2006