Cristiano Ronaldo sits in impasto oil paint on textured linen canvas

Cristiano Ronaldo high detail textural sports poster.

**Background**

Raw linen canvas. Unstretched. Unprimed. The natural weave of Belgian linen at 12 threads per centimeter. The specific warm cream of undyed natural fiber before any preparation. The texture of a surface that has its own presence before anything is placed on it. The warp and weft of individual threads visible at close range. The slight irregularities of hand-woven textile. The background as material, as substance, as the thing itself rather than the thing that holds the thing.

**The Figure**

Oil paint on linen. The figure painted, not photographed. Specifically in the technique of Lucian Freud applied to a sports subject. The thick impasto approach. Paint applied with a palette knife and hog bristle brush simultaneously. The paint building physical texture on the surface.

His skin rendered in the Freud tradition of treating human flesh as the primary subject of painting. Every plane of the face a separate decision about color and texture and thickness of paint. The shadows in his eye sockets in deep raw umber applied thickly with a palette knife. The highlights on his cheekbones in titanium white mixed with yellow ochre applied in single strokes that leave the bristle marks of the brush visible in the paint surface. The skin of the painting as physically present as the skin of the subject.

**Pose**

Sitting. A wooden chair. The specific wooden chair of a Lucian Freud studio. Worn smooth. Green paint fading to bare wood at the edges.

He is sitting forward. Elbows on knees. Hands clasped loosely. Looking directly at the painter. The confrontational gaze of someone who agreed to sit for this portrait and is now in the process of sitting for it. Not performing for the painter. Not avoiding the painter. Simply present in the way that Freud's subjects are present. With the full weight of a body that exists in three dimensions and is now being asked to exist on a surface.

**Kit**

Portugal kit worn, not displayed. The jersey untucked. One sock slightly lower than the other. The kit as clothing, not as uniform.

The fabric rendered with the same physical attention as the skin. The hexagonal mesh of the jersey fabric in paint. Each hexagon a separate brushstroke. The stitching at the collar in raised impasto. The number 7 in titanium white applied over the dried base layer. The white paint sitting on the surface of the paint beneath it. The typography of the number visible in brushstroke direction, not in clean edges.

**Color**

Lucian Freud palette. No black mixed into shadows. Shadows in deep warm earth colors. Raw umber. Burnt sienna. Prussian blue for the coolest shadows. Highlights in titanium white mixed with warm yellows. Never cool white. Never blue white. The warm white of flesh in warm light. The specific color temperature of a north-facing studio window light. The light that Freud used for thirty years in Holland Park.

**Eyes**

One color departure from the Freud palette. His eyes. Painted in the specific amber-brown of their actual color. The Freud tradition of rendering eyes with obsessive chromatic accuracy.

The iris in three separate glazes. Base layer raw umber. Glaze of burnt sienna. Final glaze of yellow ochre at the highlight zone of the iris. The catchlight in each eye. A single mark of titanium white. Two strokes. The smallest marks in the painting. The most important.

**Red Accent**

Signal red Pantone 485C appearing in the painting in one zone only. The kit. The jersey scarlet.

In the Freud technique the red is mixed. Cadmium red light. Alizarin crimson. A touch of raw umber in the shadows. Titanium white mixed in for the highlights on the fabric where the light catches the hexagonal mesh. The red of the kit the most saturated color in the painting. Freud painted flesh obsessively. Here the flesh and the kit compete for the painter's attention equally.

**Graphic Design Intervention**

Minimal. The painting does not need graphic design. It needs one thing. Typography that respects what it is adjacent to.

**Typography**

Bottom of the linen. Below the painted figure. The unpainted linen. No ground preparation. The raw material of the support visible.

In this zone. A single typographic element. Painted, not printed. In the same black paint used for the deepest shadows in the figure. A broad brush. Single gesture. Uppercase. Imperfect. The letters with the quality of painted type, not printed type. The edges slightly irregular. The paint slightly thicker at the beginning of each stroke and thinner at the end.

RONALDO.

Painted on the unpainted linen with the same brush that painted the shadows in his eyes. The name as part of the painting. The painting as a complete object. Canvas. Stretcher. Linen. Paint. Name.

**Japanese Typography**

Painted in the same black paint. Upper right corner of the unpainted linen zone. A single kanji.

肉体

Pronounced *nikutai*, meaning flesh or physical body. Painted with a narrower brush. More controlled. The calligraphic quality of Japanese brush painting in conversation with the Western oil painting tradition above it. Two painting traditions on one canvas. The concept of the body rendered in the two artistic languages that have most seriously attended to it.

**Physical Object**

This is a painting. Not a poster simulating a painting. An actual oil painting on linen. 122 × 182 cm.

The poster is a reproduction of the painting. Shot on a Phase One XT with Rodenstock 180mm. Raking light from upper left to reveal the impasto texture. Every ridge of paint casting its own micro-shadow. The photograph of the painting capturing the physical presence of the paint surface at 10K resolution. The reproduction preserving the texture that makes the painting real.

**Art Direction**

Lucian Freud studio practice as the only reference needed. The decision to paint rather than photograph the greatest athlete of the era is a statement about what attention means.

Freud painted the same subjects for decades. Returning to the same faces because he had not yet fully understood them. This painting is the first session.

Print format 70 × 100 cm reproduced from the 122 × 182 cm original. The reproduction at 58% of original scale. Still larger than life at print scale. The painting filling the print. The print containing the painting. Both real. Both Ronaldo.