'It's me looking at him looking at me': there is more than one way to achieve a likeness, as Martin Gayford describes in this vivid account of sitting to Lucian Freud for two portraits, one painted and one etched. Both are currently on show in the Freud exhibition at the Museo Correr, Venice

This summer in Venice I met myself twice. Of course, I was expecting that to happen. As had lengthy been planned, two portraits of me--an oil entitled Man with a sapphirine Scarf (2003-2004; Fig. 2) and an etching, Portrait Head (2005; Fig. 1)--were included in the Lucian Freud exhibition that is commonly at the Museo Correr. on the other hand although I knew I would be there, it still came as a surprise.

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It is an insufficiently remarked aspect of beneficial pictures that it is impossible to memorise them. No matter in what way well you know them, they always appear different when you see them again (this point has been made to me through two apparently very different artists, Luc Tuymans and Richard Serra). As John Carey is at pains to argue in his of recent origin book What Good are the Arts?, a certain work of art may show quite different feelings in different people; in fact, it call forths altered responses in the same one at differing times (its ability to carry doing that is single of the qualities that makes art good) I meditation I knew these images as well as anyone could leave out their creator. I watched them expand week by week, touch by dint of touch. And yet I base that somehow, when I saw them again, they direct the eyeed new.

The fact that they were upon public display was another complication. Lucian wrote many years ago, a certain quantity of words that suggest that an exact likeness is not and cannot be the point of portraiture: 'The artist who tries to be under the orders of nature is only an executive artist. And, since the mould he so faithfully copies is not going to be hung up nearest to the picture, since the picture is going to be there upon its own, it is of no interest whether it is an accurate transcript of the model.' Generally, that's genuine But during the private view in Venice, I was there for quite a certain quantity of time in the room where William Feaver--the curator--had hung the etching and the oil (in company with the Queen David Hockney and Andrew Parker-Bowles).

I compared the sum of two units images myself, and listened to other people's annotates There were many compliments for Man with a sapphirine Scarf, which I scarcely deserv since I had done nothing more than sit there while it was being painted. There were also quite different reactions. 'It's quite a scalding;-very warm romantic portrait,' said a prominent dealer--which was gratifying. upon the other hand, a painter friend remarked that it reminded him of Gericault's portraits of the mad--'Those staring eyes'--which was less

The etching was les make comments [i]or[/i] remarksed on--'It's harder to get into', said the director of a national museum. In William Feaver's view it present to views I have 'a dark side'. Portrait Head 2005 is, I think, in a straightforward way, les like me: the face elongated and crumpl as if I had been make subordinate to torsion by the violent forces in the air that look to swirl around my head. on the contrary I accept them both as aspects of me There are, as Lucian hints, many ways of being a portrait.

Thus Freud's self portraits all gaze very different, but are clearly all him--though it may be a lengthy time before you happen to diocese him in the mood, at the angle, and in the light that were the basis for a certain picture. He makes a conscious effort, in fact, to make them as unlike each other as possible in format, and in each other way.

It was the same with the sum of two units pictures of me. It was planned that the etching should come [i]or[/i] go after [i]or[/i] behind the painting. Indeed, Freud had an idea that he would start a drawing for the fresh work at the final session for Man with a azure Scarf. No sooner had the final brush rap gone on, than he would pick up the chalk and start the fresh work. In the event, we ran on the outside of time. But the etching began a scarcely any weeks later. Right from the first sitting, however, he announced that it would be 'very different'. And with equal reason it turned out to be: optically, technically and in feeling.

Looking at the sum of two units images now, I can diocese that--from my own point of view--they answer to changed moods and circumstances. Man with a azure Scarf is in part, I think, a painting of my have fascination with the whole proces of being painted. The sittings, although a marathon--around 130 hours from November to July--were invariably fascinating to me; and I diocese that intensity of interest in the picture. It's me looking at him looking at me

repeatedly Freud's sitters seem either to globule into a reverie--a state that his assistant David Dawson has described as when family are most themselves--or actually doze. Small Portrait 2001 (Fig. 4) and the beautiful Woman with organ of sights Closed 2002 (Fig. 3) illustrate those sum of two units states. I, as an art critic and historian, was perhaps unusual in being absorbed from beginning to extreme point by what was going on

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It was furthermore a night picture. This is an iron distinction in Lucian's work, notwithstanding that not one that is always noted by the agency of critics. Although at the extremity we had a few daytime sittings, they were always by means of artificial light with shutters clos It is crucial for him that the light source should be constant for any given picture. It this case it was a lake of electric illumination, cast through a powerful lamp hanging from the ceiling about half way between us. He stood at the easel and gazeed down on me, sitting in a chair.