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Re: How Lucian Freud's portrait of the Queen divided critics

sandy320 — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 14:38:26 -0000

Ugly, sloppy, garish, and gratuitously insulting. But for the crown, it could be any older woman. He should be shunned and shamed for calling this a portrait of Her Majesty.

Re: How Lucian Freud's portrait of the Queen divided critics

Skulb — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 15:45:57 -0000

I think the painter has figured it all out. Queenie is really the reanimated remains of Oliver Cromwell! The manly chin is a dead giveaway!

Re: How Lucian Freud's portrait of the Queen divided critics

davosplatz — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 15:48:15 -0000

She seems to have one eye in Greenock and the other in Gourock.

Re: How Lucian Freud's portrait of the Queen divided critics

davidofaustralia — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 12:44:37 -0000

Reply to Hans....

Yes, I know it’s a justifiable criticism, but it’s a while
since I did precise little paragraphs, nicely referenced (depending on the
university), summarising all my points in the final paragraph. It’s usually
somewhere between 1am and 5 am at night in Australia that I am banging around
on the keyboard of my computer. I am already chronically sleep deprived, having
been taking part on various radio shows across Australia since 1995, which is
devastating to one’s health for several reasons. Their rationale: to defend the Monarchy against those historically envious of British successes, and see themselves on the verge of a coup d' etat against British independence. Scarcely able to contain themselves they see Britain finally conned! I have a much younger wife to ‘entertain,’
and a boy and girl: my son of 10 having autism. I am ‘programming’ a barrister
to recover moneys lost for breach of contract in a business where we had been
silly enough to trust a multi millionaire who bought the ground from beneath us
as we were signing up for a lease – from his name there were IRA indications,
but we thought that in today’s Australia, and education, wealth, he’d behave
like a gentleman. He didn’t. Today’s Australia – this part of it in particular
(Victoria) is controlled by a combination of ethnic mobsters, who left after
their hero Mussolini got strung up like a turkey for losing the war: and Guy
Fawkes supporters who have their own universities now in more than one state. The Roman Empire is about to be handed Britain on a plate, having finally found a means of conning politicians who know nothing of the Black Prince and if they do their worries are dismissed by the now very cocksure Roman Empire member whose God allows him to both lie, cheat and steal - so long as it gets the job done! A
drug addict who didn’t want to pay us rent told other tenants when we went to
court to evict him, he was putting Child Protection onto us on that very day.
That is what happened, and we have only ever met persons in this very necessary
outfit who admire Guy Fawkes, so to speak. They have far too much power in
Australia – they do in UK too and yet there’s only 5 million of them. We lost
our babies, when our daughter was 2, and our son, 4. They were put with a
Croatian couple, who (for those who know geography) also support our arch enemy
Guy Fawkes, and after no less than five very angry Anglican doctors helped us
get our children back our children complained of sexual interference, our son
afraid to go to toilet training for months. Our local clergyman, who also
happened to be police chaplain, furiously said...”it’s a plot!” Yet when
someone else put Child Protection onto other tenants of ours, who were drug
addicts, with children, living in one of our dozens of caravans and cabins,
they were left alone. Yet he had a restraining order on him for beating up his
previous girl friend, having taken in another passing fancy also with someone
else’s child. I had been threatened, while in UK., for daring to be quoted in
articles praising the Protestant Monarchy, by the same ruthless social climbers
who winched Camilla up into her chosen position of Trojan Horse. My problem I
had no one behind me so was vulnerable to pretty vicious pressure groups, all
wanting a Royal to marry someone which would reflect well on their often
foreign country of origin or allegiance. So while I have no time for delicate
considerations such as content, theme, treatment, style, language, imagery, rhyme,
rhythm, and metre, I have a store of experience and knowledge gathered from
living in four major countries, including 30 or so glorious years in dear old
England, which I need to share, as I see Italy’s spider and web sitting ever more
closely on the last ‘wayward’ outpost of Protestant democracy which,
embarrassingly for them, they lost as a colony thanks to good old Henry VIII. I can see,
from a ‘bird’s eye’ perspective, what’s going wrong. Even democracy must have
it’s limitations, even as a means has to be found to find and remove cancer
from the human body. It is not sufficient that it is a living organism, and can
pass itself off as benign to the anti bodies. It is there with deadly intent,
and so are many of those economic arrivals from abroad railroaded in from that
big con trick the EEC. So, Hans, I have no time for uni level presentation,
sometimes falling asleep either on the floor or on the computer! Talking of
Hans on, I knew a chap from Eastern Europe here also named Hans who was pretty
handy with his hans; but as chaps don’t have wombs, I prefer women and told him
so! He was my boss, though, which wasn’t very Han-dy. I was disappointed, because
I thought he liked me for being a hard worker! Then he tried to get me off with
his beached whale of a sister. Dash it.

Re: How Lucian Freud's portrait of the Queen divided critics

ingenieurin — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 13:44:39 -0000

No, not anything whatsoever can be read into it. The rules of the game are, that you have to look for reasonably credible visual clues.

Re: How Lucian Freud's portrait of the Queen divided critics

Hans Strumpf — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 07:03:33 -0000

Can't you split this up into paragraphs? A logically-structured argument is always better than a brain dump.

Re: How Lucian Freud's portrait of the Queen divided critics

davidofaustralia — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 02:21:17 -0000

Reply to ingenieurin. First my sympathies to the family of Lucian
Freud, the painter. I am sure he will have been used to his public discussing
the pros and cons of what are after all controversial works. While in government
service in London in the late 60’s-early 70’s I did spend several weekends
studying the entire contents of the Tate Gallery, which moved one through the
earlier strictly representational forms of art such as Gainsborough, to
impressionism, then the more recent aberrations of art some quite psychedelic
in nature. Some, possibly induced by hallucinating drugs – with all respect to
the deceased, I am not saying this painting was necessarily so. Do we really
need reminders of what is self evident: how hard HM the Queen works – for anyone
who wants to check it out? Despite the republican, pro EEC group who have
snivelled and sneaked themselves into influential positions totally
disproportionate to their actual numbers in UK (the Guy Fawkes clique, for whom
anything is justified, providing it promotes the sanctity of their own
preferred foreign entity: called Machiavelli),seeking to indicate the opposite.
My own 7 year old daughter is showing a flair for painting, but any aberrations
from a precise likeness have not yet suggested any hidden or secret agendas. It
all lies within one’s own mind. Incidentally my daughter, whose name is Naomi
Anne, prefers to be called Anne because she knows she is named after a
Princess. In the 60’s and mid seventies I spent five years in Canada, and I had
been attacked on three occasions with knives, pistols, and drugged coffee, by
French Canadians who knew of my publicised support for the Monarchy. People
whom I had tried to help. With them religion was everything, and in a
representation of HM the Queen in the 1954 Canadian $20 bill they had managed
to produce a symbol of the devil in the Queen’s hair. This was pathetic, because
when I was a guest with an open invitation to a friend’s who lived and worked
at Clarence House, the Queen Mother had been using the Anglican equivalent of
Scripture Union notes for 35 years (1969-73): a more Godly and more Christian
woman would not be found anywhere. But considering the serene and genteel looks
that the Queen naturally has – inherited, I must say, with the demure looks of and
inherited by her darling daughter as I first discovered in 1968 only complemented
by Prince Philip’s ‘contribution,’ so to speak, as age has failed to hide the
Queen’s naturally attractive appearance I cannot see what good comes of such
caricatures. Whatever problems the Queen has during her reign have not driven
her to recede back to early childhood ‘oral’ behaviour such as thumb sucking, or
an addiction to copious amounts of alcohol, which this painting with the ‘slurring,’
or even ‘slurping’ lips suggests! In fact despite difficulties created
unintentionally but through sheer ignorance by well meaning supporters of the
Queen such as even myself, where I felt it appropriate to play the devil’s
advocate on one occasion, I think she has weathered some remarkable storms with
exceptional courage. She has maintained both her dignity and her looks to her
age, and I feel she needs to be given full credit for it, and that there was no
reason to make her look like Camilla, who everybody other than Charles can see
through. Because there seems a bizarre crossover to Camilla, does not her failure
to give up allegiance to a highly politicised religion known to have been used to
enslave the British in the earlier EEC., before good old Henry VIII got fed up
with paying the Italians every time he wanted to wash, mean that Guy Fawkes,
the Spanish Armada and Mussolini experiences have taught us nothing? This
painting may have wider implications than we realise!

Re: How Lucian Freud's portrait of the Queen divided critics

ThomasRexCampbell — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 11:15:54 -0000

Except...it's not a crown. Google "George IV Diamond Diadem" or look at a UK postage stamp. Note that HM is wearing a blouse and her every-day pearls...that's the "key" I think.

Re: How Lucian Freud's portrait of the Queen divided critics

freeham — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 11:08:51 -0000

Whistler painted the ugly and Dickens wrote about the ugly.
Are they both on your black list also?

Re: How Lucian Freud's portrait of the Queen divided critics

freeham — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 11:07:47 -0000

Gosh!

Re: How Lucian Freud's portrait of the Queen divided critics

freeham — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 11:04:58 -0000

One's personal life has nothing to do with one's ability at painting.

Re: How Lucian Freud's portrait of the Queen divided critics

daves — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 10:28:02 -0000

Perhaps Lucian Freud would have produced better portraits if he had taken a strong dose of Andrew's Liver Salts before the start of each painting session

Re: How Lucian Freud's portrait of the Queen divided critics

william garrett — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 10:18:27 -0000

I suspect that if in real life you saw a 'human' looking like this you would run for your life.

Re: How Lucian Freud's portrait of the Queen divided critics

william garrett — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 10:14:29 -0000

" I take this to mean, that Freud wanted us to reflect on the Queen's dedication to her job".

or indeed anything whatsoever you wish to read into this portrait.

Re: How Lucian Freud's portrait of the Queen divided critics

peterbishop — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 09:33:18 -0000

Freud was an " artist " with a certain talent highly over rated by those who set the taste in international art. He focussed on the ugly rather than beaughty and grace, and was lauded by those who would rather art fixate on the negative. His own personal life was appalling. Truly a man of the late 20th century.

Re: How Lucian Freud's portrait of the Queen divided critics

veteran09 — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 08:33:08 -0000

Dear Andrew M Brown and Readers,

I have found your article interesting , with the comments it has inspired.

I have a WORD PICTURE of Her Majesty as prophesied by The Apostle John in Revelation Chapter 1; here it is from The K.J.V Holy Bible : -

Revelation 1 : 13 - 16.

13) "... in the midst(of Us Brits) ... ONE ... clothed with a garment down to the foot(Royal Robe), and girt about the paps with a golden girdle(Sovereign; Queen Eizabeth II).

14) ... Head ... hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; ... eyes were as a flame of fire(Violet);

15) ...Voice as the sound of ... waters(Crystal clear - "The Queen's English") ...

16) And ... Countenance ... as the sun shineth in ... strength." !!!

Revelation is Our British History up to today in 2011.

William the Conqeror and His Successors are written of in Revelation 6 : 2 - 8, and so on with Oliver Cromwell(hair like women) in Rev. 9 : 8; Horatio Nelson with over a 1000 thundering cannons under His Command at The Battle of Trafalgar in Rev. 10 : 4 and GOD incarnate within HMQEII from Tuesday 2nd. June 1953 in New Jerusalem, London, U.K.(The Kingdom of GOD) in Rev. 21 : 3 !!!

Long may Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II reign over Us.

GOD SAVE THE QUEEN.

Sincerely,
Veteran09.

Re: How Lucian Freud's portrait of the Queen divided critics

raina — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 05:47:43 -0000

Those that paint UGLY are ugly from within.

Re: How Lucian Freud's portrait of the Queen divided critics

william garrett — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 05:43:53 -0000

If you wanted a crude unpleasant painting of a person and you also wanted it to look as if the subject had been dead for a week or so then Freud was your man.

Re: How Lucian Freud's portrait of the Queen divided critics

william garrett — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 05:37:09 -0000

"The skin particularly of her daughter had a fantastic surreal, even ethereal quality to it such as I have not seen elsewhere"!

but later

" Give me a fair dinkum picture of H M without any of these mystical musings".

Apart from this one dig I entirely agree with your views on this painter.

Re: How Lucian Freud's portrait of the Queen divided critics

Eccles — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 04:57:34 -0000

Dat aint nuffink like de Queen. He musta mixed up de paintin with anuvver one.

Re: How Lucian Freud's portrait of the Queen divided critics

freeham — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 00:49:24 -0000

I think that in this painting the queen is thinking about the imminent breakup of the marriage of Charles and Camilla.
Yet another annus horribilis in store for her.

Re: How Lucian Freud's portrait of the Queen divided critics

dancemonkeydance — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 17:27:24 -0000

If that's what you think it represents then yes. Why are you asking me?

Re: How Lucian Freud's portrait of the Queen divided critics

ingenieurin — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 16:40:55 -0000

The crown is painted very carefully, and seemingly with more detail than the face.
What does this tell us?
That the painter is trying to make the point that the crown is more important than the person, perhaps?
This trick also makes the crown look heavy. Heavier in fact, than the fairly sketchily painted face below it.
The phrase that came to my mind was "uneasy lies the head that wears the crown."
There is nothing else in the portrait, just the heavy crown and the weary face below it. No glamour, no surroundings, no other accessories. I take this to mean, that Freud wanted us to reflect on the Queen's dedication to her job.

If you want photo-realism, there are plenty of photos of the Queen. If you want pretty pastel portraits, there are plenty of painters who can do those, too. Freud was a craftsman who shaped oil paint into images that tried to tell you something.

Re: How Lucian Freud's portrait of the Queen divided critics

davidofaustralia — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 16:18:11 -0000

In 1968, before going before a Commissions Board with the British army, where, out of a whole group of absolutely model gentlemen who made me proud
of my heritage I messed things up a bit by having to straighten out someone
whose accent betrayed a likely leaning towards the IRA....while working with
Bentall’s, Kingston on Thames in 1968 I was amazed to find myself serving HM
the Queen and her darling daughter. Whom I wouldn’t have minded serving separately,
given half a chance. And we had been given no warning! But it did enable me to
form a pretty good opinion of the most gracious, and kindly, lady, our Monarch.
Physically she had the most kindly, knowing eyes that would have melted a man’s
heart if it had been made of stone. Her features reflected a youthfulness, with
no evidence of sloth or deleterious habits, such as drinking, smoking, or over
indulgence of chocolates. The skin particularly of her daughter had a fantastic surreal, even ethereal quality to it such as I have not seen elsewhere. But this painting makes her look like a tough old
truck driver, such as I have been for part of my life, who has gotten on to the
turps or was it the Schnapps? She was a woman glowing with sympathy for the
human race. At 67 I know all about the ravages of age, although men are not supposed
to look pretty. It seems to me it’s a little like this. If someone with a
significant sounding name –usually Italian, does something, even if it was by his dog to a passing tree with a paintbrush in harness appropriately, there will be
those who will go out of their way to see all kinds of hidden, mystical
meanings, in that dog’s doodlings. After all, let’s face it, that’s how Picasso
achieved fame, using the world’s most powerful state run advertising machine
for his campaign. After all, someone trading on the name of ‘Freud’ could
scarcely put a foot wrong: even if it was in a cow pat: there would be those
who would still make something of it. I mean, psychoanalysis – the bottomless
pit of endless meanings for every nuance of life – let’s face it! Give me a
fair dinkum picture of H M without any of these mystical musings. On the other
hand, I’d be more than content with one of her daughter, who has inherited all
the finest characteristics, and who deserves the highest recognition by those
whom she serves so well, despite attempts to bring her down by aggrieved former
WW2 protagonists, with the audacity to settle in England and take potshots at
close range. And, to add insult to injury, before taking back ultimate control of the errant former Roman Empire member via the EEC, founded England's first republican movement since Cromwell, with another of Mussolini's former aggrieved citizens coming to Australia and doing the same here.

Re: How Lucian Freud's portrait of the Queen divided critics

tigerstripes — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 15:20:58 -0000

Remove the crown and the hair style which was lifted off any silver coin and is a parody, just look at the face from brow to chin and you see an indomitable old person still struggling on. The dichotomy comes in the treatment of the eyes and each side of the face as if the artist is undecided who is there. Is she the Queen who is the left or the right side of the face?