For many people, writes R. R. Reno in The Bohemian Mystique , the English painter Lucian Freud’s
youthful adventures with criminals and other maladjusted misfits give his artistic vision a special authenticity. His experiences on the margins create a transgressive imagination. Or so we can easily imagine a contemporary professoror a noted critic or a major journalistsaying.
That idea began with Rousseau and now infects nearly all of us, he goes on to write in today’s “On the Square” article, with consequences he describes.