LUCIAN FREUD
ABOVE Lucian
Freud, Reflection
(Self-portrait),
1985, oil
on canvas,
55.9x55.3cmRIGHT Lucian Freud,
Self-portrait,
Reflection, 2002,
oil on canvas,
66x50.8cm
By the 1950s, Freud stood up
to paint and used hog’s hair
brushes for thicker textures
aspect, he was immensely selfish.
In Freud’s self-portraits, as in the
portraits of the people in his life,
there is a psychological element to
each work, a confrontational realism
to which the viewer responds. He said
he wished his portraits “to be of
people, not like them”.
One senses it in Hotel Bedroom,
set in a Paris hotel. There is a sense
of anxiety and tension in this double
portrait of Freud and his second wife,
the novelist Lady Caroline Blackwood.
The composition focuses primarily on
Blackwood, then leads the eye
directly through to the figure of Freud
backlit, standing by a window, staring
back the viewer, as if looking at
himself in a mirror. The emptinessbetween the couple is palpable with
the addition of a voyeur – the viewer- present. The result is reminiscent of
the isolation felt in an Edward Hopper
painting; Freud cropped the
composition tightly, which added
a claustrophobic element.
In self-portraits Freud said he found
it difficult to infuse the psychological
element that he could attain in his
portraits of other people. The
features he saw looking back at him
in the mirror were not all that he
wanted to paint. He needed to exact
an intense scrutiny of who he was, to
reveal more than physical features.
In Man’s Head (Self-portrait III)
from 1963, Freud used thick oil paint,
to define and highlight his angular
facial features, the impasto strokes
applied like a Cubist refraction of light
and shade. In addition, there is a
brooding atmosphere, as though one
is present in front of him, caught
witnessing this exploration of his
being. In Reflection with Two Children
(Self-portrait), painted two years later,
Freud experimented with two mirrors,
peering down at himself, his head and
body twisted around from a sidewards
position, to study and paint his
features. The lamp light source
is revealed behind him.
The placement of two of his
children, Rose and Ali, at the bottom
of the picture frame, is said to be
copied from the tomb of the Eygptian
dwarf Seneb, a high-ranking court
official, and his family, reproduced
in a history book owned by Freud.
The nude portrait was a tool in
Freud’s remarkable oeuvre, exploring
the physical body of his subject so
intimately, in stark portrayals of
realism. His sitters never appeared
to flinch from his infinitesimal
exploration of their skin and their
psyche. In his own self-portraits,
particularly nude portraits, one can
sense the atmosphere of unequivocal
self-examination, as in 1985’s
Reflection (Self-portrait).
Freud captures not just his likeness
but his inner determination and
humanity. Remarkable portrayals
such as this explain why he was
honoured as the greatest living
figurative artist prior to his death in- His motivation through decades
of self-examination was an attempt to
manipulate the paint to produce a
realism that, as he said, would
astonish and convince the viewer.
Given many of the artworks in Royal
Academy’s show are loaned from
private collections, Lucian Freud:
The Self-portraits is a rare opportunity
for artists to study Freud’s working
methods up close; to examine his
self-portraits, from youth to older age.
The intensely personal observations
of himself may never reveal exactly
how he achieved the psychological
representations of his physical
appearance, but the self-portraits will
reveal the painter within the man.
Lucian Freud: The Self-portraits
runs until 26 January 2020 at the
Royal Academy of Arts, London W1.
http://www.royalacademy.org.uk
Artists & Illustrators 41