Within this essay I am going to discuss the work of ‘Lucian Freud’. To do so I am going to look at 3 of his paintings, focusing on his influences, techniques used and his individual style. Lucian Freud is an English painter that was born on the 8th of December 1922. His early paintings were associated with surrealism and he usually used a thin paint, then in the 1950’s he changed to doing nude portraits.He usually paints images of nude people lying across a bed or the floor and he also did many portraits of pets and their owners. Freud has been known to spend up to 4000 hours on a painting and many of his paintings show that they have had a large amount of passion and time put into them.
Lucian Freud/Naked portrait with reflection/oil on canvas/1980/http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/lot_details.aspx?intObjectID=5101414
Here is a portrait of a naked woman, Freud has used thick rich but somewhat dull colours. Like Jenny Saville, who his work is often compared to, he has painted blotchy red patches on different parts of her body, mainly on her face. He has painted the model in an awkward position, blushing, this shows that she must of felt uncomfortable at the time, or he would of liked her to feel uncomfortable. Although he has given her patchy blotches, he has still painted her skin thick and in some ways, visually appealing.
One of the portraits of a pet and its owner is “girl white dog” http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/freud/
The colours of this piece are mainly based around pale yellows and greens.
I find this painting in particular very interesting and different from most of his other paintings, he seems to have painted her much more beautiful than she really is, as if he’s painted her as he see’s her through his own eyes. Usually his work seems really thick and “daubed” but this image seems more gentle, as if he has caressed her body with his paintbrush.
Reflection (self portrait) oil on canvas 1985.
http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/freud/
this is one of lucian frued’s later paintings, I find this one of his best paintings. It seems that the newer his paintings are the better the quality of his work. Freud works with thick impasto in relatively muted colours. The use of layering paired with his thick media make his subject (himself) really stand out and seem much more lifelike.
