Lucian Freud The Self-portraits

Lucian Freud's self-portraits are currently on display in the Sackler Wing at the Royal Academy. It is very interesting, showing the growth of one Britain's most famous artists both physically and artistically. He starts out looking like James Acaster, as actually quite a handsome young man. That steely look of self-regard is something that never goes away though. I like the early work particularly. This flat style with often quite a surrealist feeling of placement is something that appeals to me. 

As the man develops so does his work. It becomes thicker, darker, more brooding and intense. He very quickly develops this sort of grey/blue palette, which stays until the end of his work and reminds me of the interior of a 1970s Austin. There is something somehow very 70s about Freud. Other than the direct self-portraits, of which there are many, what is in many ways more interesting is his habit of putting himself into other paintings. He apparently left random mirrors around his studio to catch different angles, and it is these accidental images that I like. Probably my favourite piece in the whole show is this dark tatty picture of a dark tatty chair. The texture and detail on the leather and the ripped upholstery, and then, to justify it being in the show, this mirror with a blurred image of the man himself.  

There was a whole room of these incidental images, some of them more incidental than others. So, for example, in the above picture, which out of the frame has two gurning images of his children,

is a monstrous, looming self-portrait, with Freud in a hideous grey suit. You can feel the colossal self-regard emanating from this image. Freud is lesser-known as a botanical artist. Knocking around are a number of his plant paintings that took him years. There is a faded, battered feeling to this dying plant, which is an example of his slightly off-kilter faded elegance thing. And then, for reasons that are not obvious, there is a naked bust of the man, peeking out from between the fronds. He appears in other paintings too. There is, disturbingly, a full-length nude painting of his adult son, but with Freud himself appearing reflected in the window. Others have his feet or shadow.  

As he gets older, the clothes get rarer, the palette gets greyer, the paint gets thicker, and the way it’s applied looser and more fluid. Thicker crusty paint starts appearing, particularly on his nose. After a while though it’s the same face, again and again. It becomes a bit much.

For me, there is much more interest in the more dynamic, narrative paintings. Although the subject matter seems very harsh, I like the one of Freud and his then wife in a hotel room (above left). I like the narrative tension in the painting and the pensive look of horror on his wife's painting. While Freud is not my favourite painter, I find him often far too cold and distant, artistically and psychologically this is a fascinating show.