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
What do I ask of a painting? I ask it to astonish, disturb, seduce, convince.
Interpretation
The quote expresses the multifaceted impact a painting should have on its viewer.
Lucian Freud emphasizes that a painting should evoke a spectrum of emotions and reactions from its audience. It's not merely about aesthetic beauty; rather, it's about provoking thought and stirring feelings, engaging the viewer on a deeper level.
In practice
This quote could be shared in an art critique to highlight the expectations of art.
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.
To hell with reality! I want to die in music, not in reason or in prose. People don't deserve the restraint we show by not going into delirium in front of them. To hell with them!
Making a movie is like a marathon, and commercials are like sprints - they're equally satisfying, but in different ways.
Second hand books are wild books, homeless books; they have come together in vast flocks of variegated feather, and have a charm which the domesticated volumes of the library lack.
I love to see lack of clarity in a performance as well as clarity, as well as trust, as well as the kinds of things that human beings go through. I love to see spontaneity and 'inevitability.' How it gets there is going to shock the hell out of me, but it will get there somehow.
You write to become immortal, or because the piano happens to be open, or you've looked into a pair of beautiful eyes.
Wasn't writing a kind of soaring, an achievable form of flight, of fancy, of the imagination?
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