Since the model he so faithfully copies is not going to be hung up next to the picture... it is of no interest whether it is an accurate copy of the model.
Lucian FreudRead
The painter must give a completely free rein to any feeling or sensations he may have and reject nothing to which he is naturally drawn.
Interpretation
Artists should express their true feelings and instincts without censorship.
This quote by Lucian Freud emphasizes the importance of authenticity in art. It suggests that a painter, or any artist, should allow their emotions and sensations to flow freely into their work, embracing every instinctual choice without fear of rejection. By doing so, the artist not only creates genuine pieces but also connects deeply with their own inner world and the audience.
In practice
During an art workshop, I quoted Freud to encourage participants to explore their feelings in their paintings.
Since the model he so faithfully copies is not going to be hung up next to the picture... it is of no interest whether it is an accurate copy of the model.
When I look at a body it gives me choice of what to put in a painting, what will suit me and what won't. There is a distinction between fact and truth. Truth has an element of revelation about it. If something is true, it does more than strike one as merely being so.
It is the only point of getting up every morning: to paint, to make something good, to make something even better than before, not to give up, to compete, to be ambitious.
The character of the artist doesn't enter into the nature of the art
I paint people, not because of what they are like, not exactly in spite of what they are like, but how they happen to be.
I could never put anything into a picture that wasn't actually there in front of me. That would be a pointless lie, a mere bit of artfulness.
You could make the most beautiful film, and that weekend it's raining too hard on the East Coast, and no one goes out. Artists should have a chance to do it again. That's the challenge: Women artists don't get a second chance. People-of-color artists don't get a second chance. You're put in director's jail, and that's a wrap.
I'm not interested in seeing dance die. It's not to my advantage. Nor is it to our culture's advantage or anybody else's.
Popularity is the crown of laurel which the world puts on bad art. Whatever is popular is wrong.
When I'm in certain moods, a conversation will start up in my head, and suddenly I'll realize that the language has reached a very high and interesting level, and then lines and stanzas will just kind of appear, full-blown.
If everybody became a poet the world would be much better. We would all read to each other.
I see my own style as being a symbiosis of the styles of Alekhine, Tal and Fischer.
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