Lucian Freud quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Lucian Freud

Lucian Freud Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from Lucian Freud on Wise Famous Quotes.

As far as I am concerned the paint is the person. I want it to work for me just as flesh does.

My work is purely autobiographical ... It is about myself and my surroundings.

Sometimes, when I've been staring too hard, I've noticed that I could see the circumference of my own eye.

The task of the artist is to make the human being uncomfortable.

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.

Losing as much money as I can get hold of is an instant solution to my economic problems.

The model should only serve the very private function for the painter of providing the starting point for his excitement.

A painter's tastes must grow out of what so obsesses him in life that he never has to ask himself what it is suitable for him to do in art.

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

The painter's obsession with his subject is all that he needs to drive him to work.

What do I ask of a painting? I ask it to astonish, disturb, seduce, convince.

The process of creation becomes necessary to the painter perhaps more than is the picture. The process in fact is habit-forming

A painter must think of everything he sees as being there entirely for his own use and pleasure.

Now that I know what I want, I don't have to hold on to it quite so much.

It is through observation and perception of atmosphere that he [the artist] can register the feeling that he wishes his painting to give out.

I have a timetable, but no routine.

The painter must give a completely free rein to any feeling or sensations he may have and reject nothing to which he is naturally drawn.

I want paint to work as flesh.

I use the gallery as if it were a doctor. I come for ideas and help - to look at situations within painting, rather than paintings.

The only secret I can claim to have is concentration, and that's something that can't be taught.

The character of the artist doesn't enter into the nature of the art.

Whether it will convince or not, depends entirely on what it is in itself, what is there to be seen.

The paintings that really excite me have an erotic element or side to them irrespective of subject matter.

When I look at a body it gives me choice of what to put in a painting, what will suit me and what won't.

The only way I could work properly was by using the absolute maximum of observation and concentration that I could possible muster.

You ask why I'm fascinated by the human figure? As a human animal, I am interested in some of my fellow animals: in their minds and bodies.

I could never put anything into a picture that wasn't actually there in front of me. That would be a pointless lie, a mere bit of artfulness.

I never think about my style but just try and make the pictures look believable.

Full, saturated colours have an emotional significance I want to avoid.

I would wish my portraits to be of the people, not like them. Not having a look of the sitter, being them.

The aura given out by a person or object is as much a part of them as their flesh.