Robert Hughes declares Lucien Freud is Britain’s greatest living artist. “There is a lot more humour and sweetness in Freud than he is credited with – it’s just that his unsparing wit and pitiless judgment, which allow the sentimental no room, tend to crowd them out of his never very accommodating public image. He finds many people banal, often unbearably so. He has, in abundance, the sheer mercilessness that Baudelaire attributed to the dandy as a type. People looking for art that will appease their expectations of warmth and unearned self-esteem do well to steer clear of him.”