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Although I don't like the work of Lucian Freud, one of my former teachers (for whom I have the greatest respect), considered him a great painter.
When thinking of Freud's work, I am reminded of an article I once read in which a very fine wildlife painter was interviewed. He declared that unless he painted bloody, eviscerated animals, etc., his work would probably never hang in a museum because it was not "ugly enough." Unfortunately, it seems that the many of the paintings which received the most attention in the 20th century were those that were ugly or grotesque. Hopefully, this attitude has been left behind and will not continue into the 21st century.
The critic Robert Hughes once asserted that Freud was the finest portrait artist of the 20th century. Perhaps he (Hughes), too, will tire of unattractive representations of the human form.
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