Lucian Freud exhibition in London

This week I also went to see this exhibition. I had never seen an original Freud before as far as I can recollect.  This show was almost entirely of human portraits and most of the  pictures had an intensity and almost harshness that I found a bit unsympathetic.  Brilliant virtuosity but something almost brutal as well.  This quality was conspicuously lacking in the portraits of his mother, in particular one large painting completed when she was very old and frail.  This painting was absolutely still, gentle and luminous and so different to his other work.  

I also enjoyed looking at the way he paints animals,  brilliant too but with additional warmth and with love.  Furniture, rooms, plants and textiles come in for less intense scrutiny and are the better for it, IMHO.  Who am I to say, however? 

The exhibition was extremely crowded but not so much that it was impossible to see all the work.  I had hoped to see more animal painting but this was not to be.  Just a jack russell and his whippets. Very nice, though..