[Daily Telegraph – Obituary] – So early was [Lucian] Freud’s reputation established – while he was still a teenager – that for almost all of his career he was able to paint on his own terms, and only what he was interested in. “My work,” he said, in a remark at once typically truthful and egotistic, “is purely autobiographical. It’s about myself and my surroundings.”
The results of this subjective outlook divided both the critics and the public. For many, Freud was a master of capturing the quintessence of a sitter, his paintings being, as he said, not like people but of people. Though his stature was perhaps increased by his having few great contemporaries, he was hailed as the heir of Rembrandt and Hals, both of whom he greatly admired.
Others found the stern intensity of Freud’s scrutiny unsettling and too uniform, thinking his paintings revealed not their subjects but his view of humanity. His pictures were said not to celebrate the differences between individuals, but their melancholy similarities – an opinion reinforced by the anonymous titles Freud gave many of his works, as if they were exercises rather than pictures of real people.
Continued in the Daily Telegraph | More Chronicle & Notices.
