Lucien's Light

Melbourne by Night
I took off an hour early and headed to the Irish Museum of Modern Art for the Lucien Freud Exhibition. There were around fifty pictures - mostly paintings, but also etchings and drawings - and, obviously, mostly portraits. It is very interesting to see the progression of his style over the years. In his 80s now, he is just as vital as years back, though I must confess to preferring his work from the Seventies and early Eighties. There is a stunning portrait of his daughter, Esther's head on a pillow from 1983 or so. How he achieves so much realism using such long brushstrokes is incredible, but the keys here are light and tone. The white highlight on the forehead was common to many a picture. The rich and varied use of colour on his subjects' faces, unrealistic though the colours may be, convey the sense of shading and tonality intrinsic to the human face, and so breathes life into each portrait. In my view, the unnatural colouring and the element of charicaturing links him with the poster art of Thirties pulp magazines (like Dali) and somehow I also see en element of Bacon. His most recent work is characterised by a heavy use of paint on the subject's skin, very layered and rough. His earlier works from the late forties and early fifties in contrast have an almost Renaissance or even medieval feel to them (the small portraits of a boy, for instance). Certainly in the 'Boy' pictures there is a Botticelli-like delicacy, very different from his later pieces.

A documentary on Freud was showing as part of the exhibition, interviewing some of his many subjects and showing much of what was shown at Tate Britain in 2002 as part of a retrospective. Good though the video was, it had the unfortunate effect of reminding us just how much was not on display in this particular exhibition Still worth seeing, and there was a good retrospective of Ann Madden on too.