Flesh in the Age of Plastic Surgery

Lucien Freud paints us as we really are. I do not give any credence to the notion of him as a post-Freudian painter. Indeed, I would say that he is the opposite of this. It seems to me that the importance of Lucien Freud is that he is the painter of flesh as independent of psycho-analysis. These people are mirrors to ourselves. Maybe it is because I am reaching fifty that I see in these bodies what I see in the mirror. Freud has escaped the Greek and Roman notions of perfection in human form. These lumps, creases, bumps are us. Maybe some people feel uneasy in their presence as they all too convincingly portray our frailties and yet I also feel that they pass dignity to us. These are not air-brushed humans but living and breathing people captured on canvas. I once had the pleasure of briefly talking to Lucien Freud. I so wanted to tell him how much I loved his strange paintings. Most of all I wanted to tell him that he made me feel real.