Wasteground with Houses, Paddington 1972

Lucian Freud’s painting, Wasteground with Houses, Paddington, shows a London scene rendered in muted earth tones and grays. The act of painting feels deliberate, each brushstroke building up layers to create a sense of depth and texture. I wonder what Freud was thinking as he painted this unglamorous scene. The backyard is full of garbage, but it's painted with the same level of attention as the houses. The paint isn't particularly thick, but there's a real sense of physicality in the way he captures the light on the brick and the rough textures of the waste ground. Look at the window frames in the building, for instance. The colors are drab, but they’re not flat. They’re built up with strokes of brown, gray, and a bit of cream, almost like he's sculpting the light. I bet he was trying to find some beauty in a very ugly space. Like Courbet, he focused on realism. In painting the urban landscape, it makes me think of other British painters like Frank Auerbach. They are all talking to each other, trying to find new ways of seeing and understanding the world through paint.