The painting reveals all of the human 
condition. In front of a nude by Lucian Freud,
the look is of course stopped in the first trap of the
painting, which means a painted body
is untouchable, and the desire to achieve,
which is hidden in nature, is strengthened.
But Lucian Freud offers more: facing his nudes,
the look experiences the
painful condition the exposed human body. 
As Freud could paint only those he loved
and those who loved him. Children, mistresses,
lovers, none of those who posed for him
appears nowaways to blame him, when we know
the sittings, often lengthy,
could be real torture sessions.
The designer Raymond Jones was in 1977
the first male nude model for Lucian Freud.
For nine months, he had to pose multiple times
with a rat, following a very precise ritual:
the rat was slightly drunk with
Champagne, so it stays
quiet. The result changed profoundly
the perception of nudity in the contemporary
painting, emphasizing the raw impudence
of the male body. A man stripped off
his clothes lying with a rat
was a psychodrama. That man
exhibited in an uncomfortable situation evoked
a prisoner in his cell, but the vision
was perverted because he was
in a normal home. There was there
neither nobility nor idealization, sex being
deliberately placed in the center to attract
the look. Metaphor of risk, social and sexual
transgression, the paintaing was very
different from previous artistic nudes.
It surprised and still surprises. Raymond
also posed for a double nude portrait
with his platonic friend, John,
with whom he lived more than thirty-five years.
This is another painting ahead of its
time with two men suggesting an
affection and an intimacy up
physical love, but without any certainty.
They have their eyes closed, the right hand of Raymond
rests on the left ankle of his friend,
the tip of his penis is hidden
by John calf. With these two nude Raymond,
Lucian marked its territory as
cold observer. They became
key witnesses of his style. The last
model and companion of Freud was also
a man devoted beyond the imaginable.
He, who had eleven children with almost as much
women, was dying of cancer, perhaps
caused by this white Krems he used
and abused in his painting. David arrived early morning and
often spent the night at his bedside,
returning with the utmost care every
two hours. Upon his arrival, he removed
his clothes and sat on a mattress
with Eli, the greyhound, while Lucian settled
at his easel. It was a mutual gift
between two men intimately linked by
affectionate feelings more than tangible,
by love of painting, by silent sharing of
space and time, and
result, upsetting, is as much a portrait of
Lucian than a nude David.
Because we find in it a tenderness missing
from many of his other nudes, which are 
brutal. In the latter stage, David was taking
car of everything and Lucian saw him more than anyone.
Quiet, gentle, intelligent and funny, David
also had a hardness he used
to protect Lucian. It had become essential
in the life of the artist, which was acknoledged by
his friend, the painter David Hockney:
"There are these powerful and sometimes lacking love
nudes, and then you end up
having this body gently immersed in
a bath of light under the eye of a painter
obviously very loving. What impression of
affection. Lucian Freud was unable to prevent
showing love in his latest painting".
