For those of you who have never heard of Lucien Freud, here¹s a brief recap. He was born in Berlin, 1922. His immediate family moved to England sometime before his grandfather, Sigmund. Coming from a well to do family, Freud was schooled in art from a young age. Always a strictly figurative painter, he was never swayed by the daunting prospect of Modernism which was so prevalent during his life. Oh, actually, I¹m sure if we tried really hard, we could fit his work into some sort of Modern context, and we could be very pretentious about it, but essentially he dealt with the figure. The figures in this show are large nudes, some nearly life size.

  I walked in not expecting to like this show. It had been my contention that Freud really hadn't painted anything new in twenty years. I felt that he was just reiterating the same concept over and over again. I still in fact feel this way, but I did enjoy the show. He always paints these pensive looking people, usually with their legs spread, in an environment with wrenchingly skewed perspective. The thing is, he paints them so well. There's no way I could say that these aren't beautiful paintings. First of all, they have a great gesture to them. You really believe that the figures exist in real space. The figures have "weight" on the canvas, gravity appears to have an effect on them. Freud really has it on the ball when it comes to rendering people. The skin has a translucency to it as it passes over bones and veins, one gets a real feeling for the physical construction of skin in fact when one looks at his work. It¹s this physicality that sets Freud apart from his contemporaries.

  The paint is built up very thickly on all of his paintings, irregular to the point where Lucien won't allow any of them to be shown unless they're under glass to mitigate the bumps. (Sometimes people might tell you that he insists on the glass because he doesn't varnish his paintings, and the glass is to protect them. The truth is that he doesn't want his inconsistencies on display.) His paintings are undeniably sexual, but it¹s a physical aspect of sexuality. I would contrast his work to Reubens, who also painted large figures. Reubens' women were about romantic sex, they were full bodied sexual objects and were about pleasure and lushness. Freud's women on the other hand are about reality and time. Varicose veins can be seen below the skin's surface, and the skin itself is mottled and grainy in places. I think this is even more evident in his etchings, where the texture of the skin is developed in so many different strokes, not one of them being sensual. In some spots it's scratchy, in some it's got divots, sometimes hairy, but definitely never sexy.

  It's a little disconcerting to be confronted with such physical trademarks of sexuality, especially when they are physically so gross, but that's the point after all, and it's hit home quite effectively.

  I'd like to end this with a little anecdote from the day I saw this show. In the first room there is a painting of a model who Freud favored, and painted many times. This guy died, I think it was last year, and the rumor is he died of AIDS . So while I was perusing the art, a man who was much more well dressed than I, (and therefore in a better position to ask this question) inquired as to whether the rumor was true. The gallery receptionist confirmed that he died, but as for the rest of it she answered, "It isn¹t my place to say exactly what he died of." "Wow!" I thought, "How hoity-toidy!" I wondered if she thought that Lucien might get mad at her. Then I figured that that was probably just how she was instructed to answer the question, it must be quite common.

  So, if you managed to catch the show at the Met three years ago, there aren¹t many new concepts here, aside from a little further refinement, so you can decide whether or not to see it. If you are previously unfamiliar with Freud's work (or if you're a diehard fan) I would urge you to go, talent such as this isn't to be missed.