The Lucian Freud Documentary that was shown on BBC, was a very in depth look into Freud's works that showed his personality and intense work style. I found the documentary interesting and compelling, I think this was because I had never seen such an in depth critique into an artists life before or personality which was then reflected into their work. I enjoyed the way in which the documentary gave feelings from sitters of Freud's alongside friends and family as well as other artists. The main reason I felt so strongly to the documentary was the rare insight that was shown from the opinions and recollections from the sitters. It was intense to hear the sitters recall their time with Freud alongside there sexual relationships with him also. I found the way in which he had an intimate relationship with the sitters to be odd at first but on further viewing of the documentary I began to understand within the highly personal relationship of life drawing, especially when the pieces are on a large scale and completed over a long period of time, the artist and the sitter can create an over heightened personal relationship. A view within the documentary was that Freud was able to better his piece when he had this bond with a sitter, this could be shown with analysis of the length of the pieces reflected by the length of the sexual relations. This physiological side of his life has allowed me to enjoy the works of Freud on another level, instead of interpreting the work myself I can see and hear his story which allows me to look deeper into his work.
The nudity of his pieces I don't find pornographic as others do, when I view the pieces I see an artist who loves the form of the body, every aspect and detail of the form along with the colour pigments in the skin. The detail is so defined it almost intimidates me how accurate he has created the expressions and mode of the sitter. The shaping and blends of the colour used have captured beautifully the bone definition and formation on areas such as the eye sockets, nose and upper lip, which are clear favourite aspects of Freud's, on the body.
I recently participated in a series of life drawing classes, I wasn't able to gather motivation and excitement within these classes, I only wish I had seen this documentary before to see how a great detail of concentration and patients can create a beautiful outcome, in all honest I wish I had seen Freud's work before because I regret to say I had never heard of the wonderful artist until I viewed the documentary.
I would use Freud's work in my future works and draw areas of his life such as the strong love for painting he has or the intense patience and concentration he gathers when working on a piece. I thoroughly enjoyed the documentary and I would recommend to any student, budding artist, painter or any artistic lover out there to get to BBC iPlayer and watch:
Lucian Freud: Painted Life
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