Girl in Striped Nightshirt 1985

Lucian Freud made this small painting of a sleeping girl, probably in London, using oil paint. It’s a head and shoulders view, the focus of which is a woman resting, her eyes closed. I can imagine Freud really scrutinizing his subject, studying every little detail of her face, the way her hair falls, the folds in her striped pyjamas. Look how he’s built up the layers of paint, especially on her face, using all these fleshy tones and rosy highlights. It's like he's trying to capture not just her appearance, but also something about her inner world, the vulnerability of sleep. That hand, curled up near her face, is so tenderly observed, almost sculptural. There’s a real intimacy here, isn’t there? You get the sense that Freud wasn’t just painting a likeness, but really trying to connect with his sitter, to understand her. Painting can be so amazing like that: two people, or more, connecting across time and space.