Book description
Lucian Freud, perhaps the world's leading portrait painter, spent seven months painting a portrait of the art critic Martin Gayford. Gayford describes the process chronologically, from the day he arrived for the first sitting through to his meeting with the couple who bought the finished painting. As Freud creates a…
Why read it?
1 author picked Man with a Blue Scarf as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
Martin is a pal. Even if he weren’t I would recommend this unusual meditation on how a work of art gets made. Imagine you have volunteered to sit for a portrait by a highly distinguished artist (here, Lucien Freud).
This entails many hours, stretching over many months—of sitting in exactly the same position, effectively doing nothing. Not only are you stuck with the situation. You can’t even be sure that the artist, let alone you, will be happy with the result. From this agony comes an essay on the process of a ‘masterpiece’ that is patient, tender, good-natured—and filled with…
From Nigel's list on the origins of art.
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German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…
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