Frank Auerbach was a master of painting thinly and thickly at once. His canvases are often covered in wide, finger-thickness brushstrokes. They can dart around to define the contours of a face or the outline of a body. In his landscapes, they delineate buildings, railings, vegetation and the play of light. Yet, with the exception of his early works, where so much paint is layered that finished works almost resemble reliefs, these broad dashes of colour are often lightly applied. Often, they are thin in the middle and thick on the edges, like the seal on a letter. Sometimes, the grain of the canvas can be seen beneath the paint. This combination between light and heavy is one of the things that makes his paintings seem so miraculous, whether he is abstracting Rembrandt, depicting a reclining nude, or capturing the almighty clutter of his studio.
