Trying to Do What I Can't Do

"My work isn't about giving art what I think it needs. You know the opening of Vasari's chapter on Michelangelo in which he says God was so dissatisfied with all the art that had to be done so far that he sent down Michelangelo to correct the situation? That is not how I see myself. I remember Francis Bacon would say that he felt he was giving art what he thought it previously lacked. With me, it's what Yeats called the fascination with what's difficult. I'm only trying to do what I can't do." - Lucian Freud

Source: Portraits by Michael Kimmelman