77 Quotes by Lucian Freud

I paint people not because of what they are like, not exactly in spite of what they are like, but how they happen to be.

You ask why I'm fascinated by the human figure? As a human animal, I am interested in some of my fellow animals: in their minds and bodies.

When I look at a body it gives me choice of what to put in a painting, what will suit me and what won't. There is a distinction between fact and truth. Truth has an element of revelation about it. If something is true, it does more than strike one as merely being so.

The model should only serve the very private function for the painter of providing the starting point for his excitement

Whether it will convince or not, depends entirely on what it is in itself, what is there to be seen.

The picture is all he feels about it, all he thinks worth preserving of it, all he invests it with. If all the qualities which a painter took from the model for his picture were really taken, no person could be painted twice.

Since the model he so faithfully copies is not going to be hung up next to the picture... it is of no interest whether it is an accurate copy of the model.

It is through observation and perception of atmosphere that he can register the feeling that he wishes his painting to give out.

I've always wanted to create drama in my pictures, which is why I paint people. It's people who have brought drama to pictures from the beginning. The simplest human gestures tell stories.