Bella and Esther 1988

Lucian Freud made this painting, Bella and Esther, with oil on canvas, but we don't know when exactly. Looking at it, the colors are kind of muted and earthy, like the colors of flesh and worn leather. It's like the paint is building up a real, tangible surface. See how the strokes follow the forms, creating a sense of volume and weight? The paint handling is just really direct and honest; it's all about the physical process. It isn't hidden. Take the hand of the figure in the dark dress, for example. The paint is scrubbed in, almost raw, with layers of pink and gray, it's not idealized. It's just a hand, rendered with this incredible sensitivity. You can almost feel the weight of it resting there. Freud always reminded me of Gustave Courbet, another painter committed to showing things as they really are, rather than how we might wish them to be. Ultimately, it’s about making something solid out of something fleeting, using paint to capture a moment in time, or is it?