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 makes real to others his innermost feelings about all that he cares for. A secret becomes known to everyone who views the picture through the intensity with which it is felt.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Art conveys the artist's deepest emotions and thoughts, allowing viewers to connect with those feelings.
This quote emphasizes the profound connection between an artist and their work, suggesting that a painter's art is an expression of their deepest emotions and personal experiences. When viewers engage with a painting, they can sense the intensity of the artist's feelings, which transforms personal secrets into shared experiences, making the unseen known through the medium of art.
Themes
ArtExpressionEmotionIntensityFeelings
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the impact of art at a gallery opening.
More from Lucian Freud
All quotes →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.
Lucian FreudRead
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.
Lucian FreudRead
The character of the artist doesn't enter into the nature of the art
Lucian FreudRead
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.
Lucian FreudRead
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.
Lucian FreudRead
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If it were not for the intellectual snobs who pay - in solid cash - the arts would perish with their starving practitioners. Let us thank heaven for hypocrisy.
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When you try to unravel something you've written, you belittle it in a way. It was created as a mystery.
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