NAKED PUNCH.(Lucian Freud retrospective at Tate Britain, London, England)

Lucian Freud, the subject of a huge retrospective at Tate Britain, in London, is living proof that national character still counts in art, globalization or no globalization. The musky realist painter is extremely English. He hails from Germany--but so does the Royal Family. (He arrived in 1933, at the age of eleven.) As a grandson of Sigmund Freud, he boasts a brilliant bloodline. Unlike people of lesser stock, whose behavior is what one would expect from them, Freud enjoys the distinction of being perennially, albeit mildly, scandalous. In his eightieth year, he continues to spend long hours scrutinizing unclothed flesh in his dilapidated studio, in Holland Park. His ...