Yesterday I posted here a painting by Lucian Freud, which recently sold for a small fortune.

My regular correspondent and friend, Charlotte, commented "I think Freud's art is horrible . . I see the beauty in this face - but I see beauty in everyone's face."

Yes, we all have our own personal take on "Art" and I know that many people think that Freud's work is ugly and doesn't do justice to the subject.

They like a portrait to be an exact factual image.

Freud would answer that by saying "If that is what I wanted to do, I would have chosen to be a photographer and not a painter."

He believes that his style of painting can bring out facets of the sitter's character that can never be revealed by a photograph.

This may to some be regarded as 'distortion', but I suggest that you should study Freud's work more deeply and not dismiss it with your first superficial observation.

He himself wrote:

"I paint people, not because of what they are like, not exactly in spite of what they are like, but how they happen to be." - Lucian Freud.

The longer you look at an object, the more abstract it becomes, and, ironically, the more real." - Lucian Freud.

Freud take weeks, months, or years to capture what he is looking for in his subjects.

Beginning tomorrow, I am going to post some of Lucian Freud's paintings to another of my blogs: http://picturepost.blog.co.uk/

I would like more of you to comment, even if you just say "rubbish" or "not for me".

As a preview, here is Freud's controversial painting of our Queen:

Queen
(click on image
to enlarge)

Does he capture more of the character of the Queen than those flattering 'official' portraits?

Someone commented: "The great realist has given the Queen back her own, ordinary reality, which is a precious tribute - even if she would very likely have preferred yet another bouquet of flowers."