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This is a very interesting discussion. I also really appreciate the latest additions to this thread. I have admired Freud for a long time. There was an amazing retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum in NYC about 7-10 years ago that I bet would have impressed most of the painters on this forum for the sheer virtuosity and muscularity and of his prolific body of work. Check out his drawings and etchings as well. I think there's a tremenous about to learn from his work about the translation of flesh and blood into paint. This sketch doesn't measure up to a lot of his other work.
Freud is very much about the mortality of the flesh, the tug of gravity and of age. It is not so much about the sprit.
I compare his work with Chuck Close, which to me is very much more about the spirit than the flesh. Which to me is very interesting when thinking about the physical challenges Close faces. Another artist for comparison is Phillip Pearlstein, who I personally dislike. There's a denial of the flesh in Pearstein's nudes, but they're devoid of spirit also--simply a clinical description of form.
What do people think about Alice Neel?
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