Lucien Freud, grandson of Sigmund Freud the father of psychoanalysis, is a master of the realities of humanity. His unforgiving portraits show the sitter in a way that only the thick-skinned could appreciate. Almost caricature-like are his representations of the true human form- with every roll of fat, unsightliness, non-symmetry, and imperfection taking center stage in the body’s full glory. You want to see what you really look like? Commission a portrait from this British painter.
But is seeing how you really appear worthy of a 10 scariest paintings list? Well, that depends. It was scary to the royal House of Windsor when the Queen appeared to have a 5 o’clock shadow! What strikes me as scary once again is subtlety here. Number 5 was Pieter Brueghel’s Triumph of Death, which is an excellent example of “scare you out of your socks” scary, and that one is anything but subtle. But what Freud has achieved here, in my opinion, is a deep subconsciously spooky quality that not so much jumps out at you, but sends shivers down your spine the more you look at it, and the more you don’t understand it.
What we are looking at above is one of Lucien Freud’s “Reflections,” or self-portraits. Of course you wouldn’t know that at first glance, the same as you wouldn’t know that the two oddly placed children in the front left are his children. What you see is an extremely odd point of view as if you were lying on the floor looking up at the man with the ceiling lamps past him.
I can’t explain it fully, but when I first saw this painting I was terrified. For some reason it gave me the impression of being paralyzed, fainted, or otherwise helpless and on the floor looking up while this strange man does nothing to help, and perhaps played a role in such an unfortunate “accident.” And what are the children, hallucinations?!
Doubt, uncertainty, and fearing the unknown are as real as anything else that scares us. The mystery of this work of art makes it spooky, creepy, and scarier to me than the paintings higher on my list. This indeed is one of Freud’s oddest paintings and certainly ranks as #4 in the 10 scariest paintings.
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