Painter and Model 1987

Lucian Freud made this painting with oil on canvas. There is a lot of looking going on in this picture. You can see all the ways that Freud has figured out how to register the human form with those fleshy pinks and browns, how he slowly built it up, stroke by stroke. It’s about intimacy, in a way. A kind of obsessive vision. You can see that in his brushstrokes. I can imagine Lucian Freud in his studio, staring intently, trying to capture every little detail and nuance. The way the model reclines in the chair, all loose-limbed and vulnerable, and then you see how the chair is kind of scuffed and worn. He paints the model with such unflinching honesty, right down to every little hair and vein and imperfection. I am thinking about artists like Courbet, or Manet and how they were so pivotal for later painters like Freud. Artists are always having this ongoing conversation, you know? Looking at each other’s work, bouncing ideas around, pushing each other to see things in new ways. And that's what I love about painting—it’s this open-ended process where anything is possible.