Hmmm… this brief dive into the life and work of Freud seems like something from a bygone age. Although the author is careful to stress the ambivalence that might be felt, it still seems as if his “chauvinism” is being celebrated. If he was at pains during his lifetime to protect his privacy, it can’t have been because he thought his behaviour would enhance his artistic reputation… or was that simply a conceit which he used, given the amount of very public exposure he himself engendered – shouting across restaurants, for instance?
I’d guess there would be much greater opprobrium if he were still alive and working; lawsuits, even. And yet, none of his partners (of either sex) appeared to feel coerced; one can’t be coerced to keep returning day after day to pose for extremely intimate portraits, unless of course, you’re a rat.
Whilst Freud’s ability to manipulate paint isn’t in question, what interests me more is why people become manipulable. Do we all secretly yearn to have our pudenda on display, for instance? And the way to do this is called “art”?
I’ll come clean here. As an artist, i’m well versed in the revelatory nature of the visual arts, and that includes sculpture and photography. I’m bored to tears, however, with the so-called “revelation” of naked display. It’s only a sample of who we are, within certain limited circumstances, and i find much of Western art involving the “nude” pretty yawn-inducing. Oh look, there’s another one… wall after wall in gallery after gallery. Freud was a great painter, but in my opinion was far from being a great artist, missing out on a huge amount of vital human experience in his pose of “protecting his privacy” whilst going out of his way to do the opposite. That’s the true revelation; greater than any amount of exposed flesh.
Apart from a very strong personality, a very strong will directed at painting, a very keen observer of the human body and a developed mastery of paint.
Warren Trees
1 year ago
It’s interesting to read accounts about flagrant, demented and chauvinistic perverts. But, somehow, if they create art it is all ok. But if they exist in any other form, they are demonized.
He appeals to those on the left as portraying the gritty realism of life. I always find it funny that liberals, the left are so attracted personally to people who are vile in their treatment of others.
Freud would have been destroyed in the current climate – but then we’d have missed out on his great art. So separate they (behaviour and art) must be.
Brett H
1 year ago
“I’m sure he wouldn’t have welcomed it… [but] posterity is owed the correspondence.” My response to this is, why?
I just love the scattering of “gaze” here and there. His sitters are subjected to his excoriating gaze, … … the cold, unsparing nature of Freud’s gaze makes her seem dead. You can feel Freud’s cruel, uncompromising, brilliant gaze in every canvas…
Gaze is the empty receptacle, devoid of intention, until it can be squeezed from accounts of Freud’s behaviour and trickled into it as meaning and so becomes a lens to view his paintings. But it is an awfully big assumption that behaviour implies the nature of an artist’s perception, and then to conclude on the back of that, that Freuds “gaze” was “excoriating”, “cold”, “unsparing”, “cruel”, “uncompromising” and “brilliant”.
Renske Mann
1 year ago
If he did one good thing, it was that Freud kept figurative painting in the public eye during an era when the art form was neglected in favour of American abstracts and so-called Pop Art. Lucian had the upper-class connections, which helped him being taken seriously by galleries. My late husband the artist Cyril Mann (1911-1980) was not so lucky. Impoverished, bi-polar, and without the right friends and contacts, he did many of his finest paintings in a small council flat, determined to invigorate figurative painting. Today his flat has a commemorative plaque celebrating Cyril’s achievements. One critic opined he could have been ‘the most important figurative artist of his generation’, but what’s the use? He has been dead over forty years.
ralph bell
1 year ago
Illuminating and captivating article. An artist behaviour and personality can add to understanding their work, but its when people try to cancel the presentation of the work that we can loose out.
Hmmm… this brief dive into the life and work of Freud seems like something from a bygone age. Although the author is careful to stress the ambivalence that might be felt, it still seems as if his “chauvinism” is being celebrated. If he was at pains during his lifetime to protect his privacy, it can’t have been because he thought his behaviour would enhance his artistic reputation… or was that simply a conceit which he used, given the amount of very public exposure he himself engendered – shouting across restaurants, for instance?
I’d guess there would be much greater opprobrium if he were still alive and working; lawsuits, even. And yet, none of his partners (of either sex) appeared to feel coerced; one can’t be coerced to keep returning day after day to pose for extremely intimate portraits, unless of course, you’re a rat.
Whilst Freud’s ability to manipulate paint isn’t in question, what interests me more is why people become manipulable. Do we all secretly yearn to have our pudenda on display, for instance? And the way to do this is called “art”?
I’ll come clean here. As an artist, i’m well versed in the revelatory nature of the visual arts, and that includes sculpture and photography. I’m bored to tears, however, with the so-called “revelation” of naked display. It’s only a sample of who we are, within certain limited circumstances, and i find much of Western art involving the “nude” pretty yawn-inducing. Oh look, there’s another one… wall after wall in gallery after gallery. Freud was a great painter, but in my opinion was far from being a great artist, missing out on a huge amount of vital human experience in his pose of “protecting his privacy” whilst going out of his way to do the opposite. That’s the true revelation; greater than any amount of exposed flesh.
Nicely said. Let’s face it, if L. Freud’s last name wasn’t Freud, would he have been nothing more than a bum?
Apart from a very strong personality, a very strong will directed at painting, a very keen observer of the human body and a developed mastery of paint.
It’s interesting to read accounts about flagrant, demented and chauvinistic perverts. But, somehow, if they create art it is all ok. But if they exist in any other form, they are demonized.
The art world likes its pets. They like them to be a bit dangerous. It gives them a thrill to know it might bite.
He appeals to those on the left as portraying the gritty realism of life. I always find it funny that liberals, the left are so attracted personally to people who are vile in their treatment of others.
Freud would have been destroyed in the current climate – but then we’d have missed out on his great art. So separate they (behaviour and art) must be.
“I’m sure he wouldn’t have welcomed it… [but] posterity is owed the correspondence.”
My response to this is, why?
It’d keep hagiographers in employment.
I just love the scattering of “gaze” here and there.
His sitters are subjected to his excoriating gaze, …
… the cold, unsparing nature of Freud’s gaze makes her seem dead.
You can feel Freud’s cruel, uncompromising, brilliant gaze in every canvas…
Gaze is the empty receptacle, devoid of intention, until it can be squeezed from accounts of Freud’s behaviour and trickled into it as meaning and so becomes a lens to view his paintings. But it is an awfully big assumption that behaviour implies the nature of an artist’s perception, and then to conclude on the back of that, that Freuds “gaze” was “excoriating”, “cold”, “unsparing”, “cruel”, “uncompromising” and “brilliant”.
If he did one good thing, it was that Freud kept figurative painting in the public eye during an era when the art form was neglected in favour of American abstracts and so-called Pop Art. Lucian had the upper-class connections, which helped him being taken seriously by galleries. My late husband the artist Cyril Mann (1911-1980) was not so lucky. Impoverished, bi-polar, and without the right friends and contacts, he did many of his finest paintings in a small council flat, determined to invigorate figurative painting. Today his flat has a commemorative plaque celebrating Cyril’s achievements. One critic opined he could have been ‘the most important figurative artist of his generation’, but what’s the use? He has been dead over forty years.
Illuminating and captivating article. An artist behaviour and personality can add to understanding their work, but its when people try to cancel the presentation of the work that we can loose out.