Your obituary to Lucian Freud is circumspect enough (July 30, 2011). As you admit, astonishment and even despair often greeted his paintings, such as his appalling portrait of the queen. His proclivity for impasto annoyed many connoisseurs throughout his career, as well. “The best painter in the world, as he was often said to be,” you embellish his shocking candor, “seemed intent on rubbing the world’s nose in human ugliness.” Human ugliness notwithstanding, the best painter in the world he surely was not. Far from it. His main claim to fame you brush aside, though. For he was Sigmund Freud’s grandson, which you do not mention at all. Without that miraculous connection, which has exercised many for generations, he would have been sidelined from the very start on account of his painting itself. The very surname has worked wonders, as though he has somehow inherited his grandfather’s genius for the exploration of the human mind. Nay, soul. Ugliness is all he really got, both in subject and in paint. For this he deserves a witty footnote at best.