![]() Lucian Freud acknowledged that he painted naked people he did not paint nudes. 5 He wrote that, in art, “e do not wish to imitate we wish to perfect.” 5 (p26) “n the greatest age of painting, the nude inspired the greatest works.” 5 (p23) For Clark, the nude as a conceptual and artistic category always involved the notion of an ideal abstracted from the reality that we confront in our everyday lives. Clark writes that “to be naked is to be deprived of our clothes, and the word implies some of the embarrassment most of us feel in that condition,” 5 (p23) but that the nude is balanced and confident. 5 The distinction between naked and nude is central to Clark's discussion. ![]() 1 His focus on nakedness in both male and female models is antithetical to the aesthetically beautiful “nude” in art as classically described by Kenneth Clark. Lucian Freud said that his art emphasized man's animal nature. 4 He commented on Sigmund's early research with Austrian Darwinist Professor Karl Claus seeking to identify the male reproductive organ in eels and his studies with renowned physiologist Ernst Brück. Lucian Freud insisted that it was Sigmund Freud as biologist, not as psychologist, that appealed to him. Of Sigmund Freud's books, Lucian liked Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious best. He fondly remembered joking with his grandfather. Lucian visited with his grandfather in London and was photographed with him in the last year of Sigmund Freud's life. It was only after Germany invaded Austria and his daughter Anna was interrogated by the Gestapo that Freud reluctantly agreed to leave Vienna for London with his wife and daughter. Grandfather Sigmund Freud remained in Germany until 1938. Lucian was 11 years old at the time of the move and had to make the difficult transition to a new country and to a new language. When Hitler came to power as chancellor of Germany in January 1933 and began his anti-Semitic crusade, Ernst Freud moved his family to London, England. © 2013 The Lucian Freud Archive/Bridgeman Art Library. 1, 2 Living in Berlin in 1930 as an 8-year-old German Jew, Lucian learned of discrimination when he was told he was not eligible for the Hitler Youth. Sigmund gave his grandson Lucian an illustrated version of The Arabian Nights and Brueghel prints, and read comic strips ( Max and Moritz) with him, facilitating Lucian's interest in art. Grandfather Sigmund visited Lucian's family in Berlin regularly during his childhood, and he also came to Berlin for treatment of a malignant squamous cell carcinoma of the palate. Lucian grew up in Berlin, Germany, far from the influence of the birthplace of psychoanalysis in Vienna, Austria. His father Ernst Freud, an architect, was the 4th of Sigmund Freud's 6 children and was the youngest son. ![]() Lucian Freud (1922-2011), grandson of Sigmund Freud, is considered to be the leading realist painter of the last century. I work with people that interest me, and that I care about and think about, in rooms that I live in and know.-Lucian Freud 1 (p7)
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