Record-breaking auction shows beauty is priceless

As they generally are, this week’s art sales were record-breaking. Despite the recession, people still found good news to report, and the media found numerous broken records to report.

What caught my eye was the sale of “Benefits Supervisor Sleeping” by Lucian Freud at Christie’s for $33.6 million ““ the highest price ever paid for a work by a living artist; Freud is 85.

The 1995 painting is of an enormously obese nude woman reclining on a sofa. The pose could be considered sexy, if she were looking at the painter; instead her face is squashed into the pillow and her eyes are closed. Her arm seems positioned to keep her from falling off the couch.

I’ve never seen this picture in a gallery; all criticism and analysis are from newspaper and online images so textural details, as well as the impression potentially left by the scale of the painting couldn’t be considered. And since it is privately owned, I’m unlikely to ever view it in person.

Those factors aside, the nude painting still resonated with me. At first I didn’t want to look ““ the colors were so drab and the rolls of fat verged on repulsive ““ but then I couldn’t stop staring. It somehow felt rude to stare ““ like I was looking at something I shouldn’t be. This was surprising to me since images of nude or nearly nude, stick-thin fashion models in magazines hardly provoke a reaction.

So why did a large woman whose face wasn’t even clear and whose body was rendered realistically, but by no means photographically, look so exposed? And why was it so valuable?

An artist’s skill can really be shown off with curvy figures, capturing every fold of the flesh. Drawing nudes is difficult because there is a difference between how you think the body should look and how it actually does. Some people’s arms are less defined than you want; others are thinner, wider, have bigger eyes, etc. You really have to look to make a good rendering. This painting is obviously the result of close scrutiny; despite its style, it looks real.

I wasn’t staring because of the intricacies of the work. The more I looked, the more I realized that I was being influenced by pop culture again. I was staring because it was a body type not often seen (so I was curious), and unlikely to appear again in the mainstream (so I’d better look now), and with diabetes and heart disease looming, it was sad (I can’t tear my eyes away from misery ““ it’s like a car wreck).

Body images in art tend to be more “realistic” than in fashion magazines. Sales aren’t taken into consideration in the same way they are in couture or in magazines. Artists have no interest in projecting what will be beautiful or even in reflecting beauty. Art can be whatever it wants to be.

If you think Crocker is being insensitive, e-mail her at [email protected].