Lucian Freud has been interpreted in many ways
in a biographical way, psychological way
because of his grandfather.
And maybe in this moment in the 21st century,
we should look at him as a painter
that talked about the creative procedure of a painter.
I am Paloma Alarcó, the Chief Curator of Modern Painting
here at the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza.
The Thyssen museum is joining the National Gallery
in this centenary exhibition,
The Credit Suisse Exhibition: Lucian Freud: New Perspectives.
There are three paintings from the Thyssen collection
that are in the exhibition.
'Reflection with Two Children',
'Large Interior, Paddington'
and a portrait of Baron Thyssen.
Apart from those three, the collection has another two,
the 'Last Portrait'
and another portrait of Baron Thyssen,
a head portrait.
Lucian Freud intrigued me very much.
He's an artist that doesn't follow
any of the avant-garde trends,
and creates a complete new language.
His painting talked of painting.
He showed us his artistic process
and we can discover many clues of what he's doing
just looking at his paintings.
Freud made a lot of self-portraits
and this one can give us clues of a new style in painting.
He starts painting up.
Before, normally he was sitting on a chair
and he is using a much looser technique,
thicker brush,
with much more paint on the brush.
Another way of looking at this painting
is to try to understand
how he painted himself,
what's the procedure?
We discover, because we see a little part of the frame,
that he's painting himself looking at the floor.
He has put the mirror on the floor.
In the left side, two kids appear, Rose and Ali,
his children.
Lucian has always preferred his intimate world,
his relatives,
his lovers,
his friends, to paint portraits.
But from time to time,
he was able to accept some commissions,
and Baron Thyssen had the privilege of being one of them.
The portrait of Baron Thyssen
installed in the "Power" section of the exhibition,
will be near another portrait
of a very powerful man,
Jacob Rothschild.
They share a kind of melancholic expression.
Maybe it's just something that appears
after a certain time of being there, quiet.
That was tough for Baron Thyssen,
a person that was not accustomed to get orders.
The scenographic ambience of his studio
is very evident in this portrait.
The floorboard, the chair, but also rags.
The whole image of the chair and the sitter and the rags,
look as if they were falling down.
He always normally represents himself
from a very low point of view,
whereas when he paints the sitter,
he situates himself in a high point of view,
like he's the one to dominate the image.
The rag started to be a kind of technique, device
to clean the brushes and to clean the floor,
but suddenly Freud started to introduce it in compositions.
He knew very well 'Bacchus and Ariadne'.
A reproduction of this painting
was in his family house living room.
We see not only the blowing drapery of the composition
but we see a pile of clothes in the corner.
And I think that interested Freud especially.
It will appear in many paintings by Lucian Freud.
'Large Interior, Paddington' is a very unsettling image,
it's painted with a bird-eye
and represents his Paddington studio with his daughter, Ib.
The plant is painted in a complete different perspective
to the rest.
The studio space is again, very evident, the wooden floor.
We can also see the stains on the floor,
paint that falls on the floor.
There is a tiny marble.
We know that it might be a marble
that fell down a torn pocket of the jacket.
Ib was not very keen of posing for him.
She was shy and very bored.
He was quite an admirer of Degas,
and they shared something that is very evident
in some nudes by Degas.
The animal appearance.
Many times Freud's work was interpreted
as the consequence of psychoanalytical writings
of his grandfather.
But he confessed that he was more interested
in the zoological interest of his grandfather
than in his psychological writings.
And looking at his paintings,
I think Freud wants us to remember
that we are mortals
and we are not anymore than human clay.