Jenny Saville is a painter of the human flesh - mostly female and some male. It all comes down to us - bodies & faces. For me, Saville seems to have moved away from her earlier depictions of the body with pain and suffering. Towards, an acceptance and calmness. Jenny Saville - who’s undergone childbirth, unknown to da Vinci and Michelangelo - also chose to infuse her art with the tenderness of motherhood. What is amazing is the sheer level of emotion conveyed in her brushstrokes.
Of particular interest to me is Saville’s focus on the eyes and lips, almost as a window into a person. Nearing the totality of expression - the inner workings of the subject’s mind and thoughts.
Her art is mindblowing.
Yet, even as I recognise her tremendous skill, there are some pieces which are difficult to engage with. Her earlier work seems to have a sense of anxiety and/or impending doom underlying them. Still I remain compelled - never indifferent.
Pieta 1 is stunning.
Rating: 5/5 ★★★★★
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Hyphen (1999)
This painting, Hyphen, was part of Saville’s first solo exhibition.
This is a double-portrait of the painter and her sister.
I think it’s amazing. Clearly Saville is “sculpting” paint to create a single body mass (with the two heads nestled together).
Ruben’s Flap (1998-1999)
This is Jenny’s take on Ruben’s fleshy folds, creases and lines on the human form. A Rubens flap is also technical term related to breast tissue reconstruction. So, this is Jenny Saville’s study of both.
The flesh is painted so well. Although it’s clearly a montage of differing flesh, they manage to fuse themselves in a striking & impressive manner.
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Interfacing (1992)
Wow ... What a statement!
I think this was a self-portrait, of sorts.
The woman perched on a stool - wearing only a pair of slip-on shoes - is digging her nails into her thighs. She is both powerful and vulnerable.
According to the gallery:
The text is from an essay by the French feminist writer. Luce Irigaray, and begins: “if we continue to speak in this sameness - speak as men have spoken for centuries, we will fail each other.” Saville considers this painting to be one of her most succinct early works because of the clarity of its composition. Although it could be regarded as a self-portrait. Saville has resisted this definition, preferring to think of it as “loaning her body to herself”.
How do men speak? Hmmm.
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Trace (1993)
I think this is Jenny Saville’s retort to the romantic depictions of women - i.e. her analytical expressionism of the true “reality” of what the female form is.
For me, I think her work tends towards the negative and depressing sense of reality - for example, the skin colour seems sickly white?
This kind of art is probably a little dated now - but during the 90s, fashion magazines did cater for a certain image of women. And, I think, Saville’s work was perhaps an apposite counter-balance.
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Self Portrait (after Rembrandt) (2019)
Terrific.
I get the Rembrandt reference. It’s his complex technique of layering fleshy tones in paintings. He applied so many different oil colouring over the ground layers.
A common theme of Jenny Saville’s portraits are damaged and wounded women - even brutally.
It was suggested, in the exhibition, that Jenny Saville was influenced by Woman I by Willem de Kooning. Thus, like WdK, a response to the eroticised depiction of women in western art (whether, contemporaneously, is another issue) - but, for me, I fail to appreciate the need for the grotesque and horror.
In Jenny Saville’s work, as I said above, aggression is a leitmotif - I don’t know why, yet - but it creates an intensity to her portraits. Her lip seems painfully busted, and she seems to be losing consciousness as she stares out at us.
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Figure 11.23 (1997)
Really disturbing.
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Reverse (2002–2003)
Incredible painting.
I found this extremely gripping and terrifying.
It’s like we’re sitting next to her ... in an orangy mist. She is looking at us, imploringly?
As ever, Jenny Saville captures the female body after it’s been assaulted and beaten, lips are swollen and distended.
It’s hard to look at. Is she even alive? I feel I want to know more, and then I don’t want to know.
I also find the colours really gorgeous.
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Witness (2019)
Horrific. Like seeing a crime photo.
I think it’s title, Witness, is intended to make the viewer confront raw depiction of the human body and suffering?
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Red Stare Head II (2011)
Amazing.
The eyes are incredible. Convey emotion. And the lips are disturbing.
I also love the fleshy colour division - they mix so gorgeously.
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Shadow Heads (2025)
A self-portrait.
Paintings have a masterly sculptural quality - esp. the lips.
I think the lips may be Savile’s favourite part of the face.
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Red Stare Head IV
The twin of the above in a series.
Beautifully painted but also a bit unnerving.
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Bleach (2008)
A self-portrait.
The way she applies those brushstrokes to the human face replicates the inner sinew and muscles of the face.
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Rosetta II (2005-2006)
This is about blindness. It’s terrific.
The strange head posture, the slightly raised eyebrows, and the “emptiness” of the eyes ...
According to the NPG:
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| Picasso |
Unlike many of Saville’s paintings of heads during this period, the gaze is not directed at the viewer. The artist has commented that she hopes the painting “calls to mind the classical idea of the mysticism of a blind person’s stare” and cites Picasso’s painting La Celestina as an influence. Saville described how she created a sense of movement in the painting: l threw tinted primer to make a splash up the right side of her cheek, So when I built the ear to the right of that there was a combination of painting techniques with different dynamics of movement.
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Room 2 - Motherhood
The Mothers (2011)
Love this. So beautiful.
I have often felt that feminism and motherhood don’t sit comfortably next to one another.
In contrast to the gory and the mangled, motherhood brings out a gentleness and loving intimacy to her paintings.
Limbs intertwined, dynamic motion, and a loving concern for the crying baby. Nudity here is quite beautiful, and a nod to the Renaissance.
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Mother and child study VII (2019)
These are both studies for the above composition.
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Cartonetto study (2019-2021)
The connection to the Italian Renaissance is unmistakable.
The baby illuminated. The mother full of protection and warmth.
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Room 3 - Body and beauty
Compass (2013)
Saville shifts away from depicting the single figure to multiples.
They appear to be the same person sometimes. The charcoal and pastels style allows Saville to generate hybrid figures - i.e. a sense of overlapping transparency. They seem to blends in and out of the grey muted background.
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Interlocking Figures Study (2019-2021)
Beautiful.
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One out of two (symposium) (2016)
I also like this. I love the crimson-red lines. I like the relaxed nonchalance on one side and the “activity” on the other.
A painting for the bedroom!
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Odalisque (2012-2014)
Bodies sculpted into place. The mirror is a clever device.
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Arc (2020-2021)
As Michelangelo, and the other Renaissance giants, learned by copying and expanding on the masters that preceded them, so does Saville.
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| The Taddei Tondo by Michelangelo |
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Pietà I (2019-2021)
Inspired by The Deposition (the “Bandini Pietà”) by Michelangelo.
Six bodies. Five are trying to lift and carry the sixth body.
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| The Bandini Pietà by Michelangelo |
The stone-coloured charcoal creates a compelling animated architecture of limbs and bodies.
The effect is visually enchanting.
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Stanza (2020-2022)
Saville says: “I wanted to see if I could make an almost abstract portrait, pivoting between a portrait of painting and a painting of a head“.
In other words, this art is about the process. The contrast brings into focus the subtle & evolving stages of her work in the layers applied.
The extra eye is interesting.
I think it works as a final product too.
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Cascade (2020)
Abstraction? I like it too.
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Chasah (2020)
Incredible portrait.
Saville’s sculptural finesse with the brush and the language of paint elevates skin to a landscape.
The NPG had some interesting comments:
Saville had been looking at the late work of Claude Monet (1840-1926), and had been drawn to his strong colour palette and the way the paint “sits on the surface”. Starting from an abstract base, Saville built the form of the head out from this, leaving liminal areas as a fresh way to look at the notion of positive and negative space in a portrait. There is a tiny reflection of the painter in the model’s eye and a sensuality to the way she has painted the mouth and teeth.
You can actually see the reflection in the eye, and I completely agree with the above observation of sensuality of his lips and mouth.
You can almost touch the lips.
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Messenger (2020-2021)
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Prism (2020)
Less “fleshy”, more vibrant luminescence of red, orange, and hints of purple and black.
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Drift (2020-2022)
Terrific.
I really like these later paintings of Jenny Saville.
A woman resplendent, head emerging upwards from a river/stream of colour, makes me smile and feel happy.
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Latent (2020-2022)
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Rupture (2020)
Vivid with an emotional intensity/force.
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Entrance of the National Portrait Gallery:
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