Crossed legs and upturned brogues (with navy socks) Symbolism
Crossed legs with upturned brogues form a pose that simultaneously closes the body and presses outward into the viewer’s space, merging reserve with assertion. In modern portraiture, this combination functions as a psychological signal rather than mere decorum, with clothing details like the sock-shoe junction sharpening the leg’s outward thrust.
Crossed legs and upturned brogues (with navy socks) in Three Studies of Lucian Freud
In Francis Bacon’s Three Studies of Lucian Freud (1969), the sitter’s crossed legs and sharply tilted brogues anchor each panel of the triptych. The legs compact the figure even as the shoes angle into the foreground, heightening the tension between self-containment and projection that Bacon builds within a geometric cage on a searing yellow ground. Reiterated across the rotating views and paired with rolled sleeves and a smeared, mask-like head, this lower-body pose turns the portrait into a concentrated psychological performance rather than a straightforward likeness.
