http://www.npg.org.uk/freudsite/
Freud has got a lot better since he died. I used to hate Freud ( reactionary, brown , mucky, old fashioned) but I found this show overwhelming and I am writing this review before I have processed my thoughts or seen the show again. Perhaps to capture the excitement of a show that knocks you out. To put it in context I have been painting a lot of faces from photos recently, and seeing paintings done from life may have been the cause of my wonder.
The paintings are English, the colour of tea, look at the people looking at them, there is a magical similarity. He left behind his prodigious talent for detail to make brushstrokes follow the direction of the skin and muscles, first thin, then thicker, then over the top bobbly to create an equivalent for the physical. I felt like I needed a new pair of glasses to see better.
I started liking Freud when I read his obituaries, his aristo-knobbing, gambler, bad boy Picasso lifestyle which had once repulsed me suddenly seemed an authentic expression of his lust for life, and in the end his supreme passsion for painting. In the days after he died I kept searching for more reminiscences in the newspapers . A large selection from his life's work communicates the long struggle, success, and progression of an artist that has reached greatness, his recent departure, makes it poignant.
It's easier to write bad reviews, the magic of Freud is that they are a million times better than a million other painted from life (see NPG portrait competition) pictures, he sees people, and bodies, and faces, and hands, not as they are, but paints them in a way that is alive. How banal. They lack colour, ideas, composition (he most often looks down on people or does silly squiff ones), variety, non-white people, and the floorboards are dull. Yet, there is the vigour of great art. I will go again and work out why they are so good.