BEZWSTYDNY CZY PRAWDZIWY?
Shameless or Realist?

Lucian Freud: A Painter of the Human Body

Summary/Abstract: The article offers a general description of the artistic profi le of Lucian Freud with regard to the ways the presentation of the naked human body is accomplished in his works. As part of the analysis, references were made to paintings by the so-called ‘old masters,’ e.g., Matthias Grünewald, Diego Velázquez, Rembrandt van Rijn, Peter Paul Rubens, Frans Hals, John Constable and, last but not least, Gustave Courbet. The ‘sensual-biological’ character of Freud’s work was studied on the one hand in the context of the painter’s perception of the links between the human being and the animal world, and on the other by pointing to the actual presence of animals in his paintings. In the concluding part of the article, an attempt was made to evaluate Lucian Freud’s work in relation to the category of shame. The analysis was made, among others, by focusing attention on the specifi city of the British artist’s creative method and on the reference to the existentialist thought.

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