A Contemporary Analysis Of Francis Bacon 196i60

A DAY IN THE LIFE  Born in Dublin, Ireland = 1909  son of English parents = troubled relationship with father and family due to homosexuality  According to Bacon his first serious painting = 1944  “3 Studies for Figures at the Base of the Crucifixion”  Although his first original work was “Crucifixion” = 1933  Obsessed with Velasquez and Picasso and believed Egyptian statues to be the greatest things ever made  Started out as interior decorator/furniture designer in South Kensington, England  Never attended art school or had formal art instruction = wanted to make up own techniques = trial/error  1933 – 1938  almost none of Bacon’s work survived = he destroyed most of his work = self -editing  Only painted on the back of canvases = unprinted side  Did not believe in painting over as “every mark is to be the first mark”  Bacon also loved photographs as they represent what is there and nothing else = wanted to achieve the same idea through his paintings

THEMES Crucifixion Inocencio X (Papal Heads)

Human Portraits (Half human, grotesque portraits)

Crucifixion • First original work • Appears to be skeleton of poultry • Brutality/fear/sacrifice • Bacon was an atheist • ‘as a non-believer, it was just an act of man’s behaviour’

1933

Crucifixion

Three Studies For Figures at the base of a Crucifixion, 1944 Religion: How a man can torture other man Oil paint on 3 boards, Each: 940 x 737 mm Sadomasochism The Scream Triptych The Eumenides Abstracted figures typically appear isolated in glass or steel geometrical cages set against flat, nondescript backgrounds

Crucifixion Religion: How a man can torture other man He wanted to make the body the visible sign of the

eternal devils of human nature, the dog beneath the skin that bares its fangs in war and in bed.

Peter Paul Rubens's 1612-1614 triptych The Descent from the Cross

Crucifixion Bacon is so interested in the mouth, as a human body part. He says the mouth has “lovely vibrations of color”

"Flesh and meat are life! If I paint red meat as I paint bodies it is just because I find it very beautiful. I don’t think anyone has ever really understood that. Ham, pigs, tongues, sides of beef seen in the butcher’s window, all that death, I find it very beautiful. And it’s all for sale—how unbelievably surrealistic! I often imagine that the accident that made man into the animal he has become also happened to other animals—lions or hyenas for example—while man remained a primate...I imagine men hanging in butcher’s shops for hyenas, who would be dressed in fur coats. The men would be hung by their feet, or cut up for stew or kebabs."

FACT  Book that influenced Bacon’s art

Crucifixion

Cimabue, Crucifix, 1268-71, Tempera on wood, 336 x 267 cm, San Domenico, Arezzo

Crucifixion

Three studies for a crucifixion 1965

figuras encerradas en espacios cerrados (cubos y círculos = plazas de toros)

Crucifixion Eumenides – the vengeful furies of Greek myth, associating them within a mythological tradition.

Evil, guilty and vengeance. Represent on shadows and beast

Adolphe Bouguereau - The Remorse of Orestes (1862)

Sadomasoquismo

Crucifixion

Three studies for a crucifixion 1962

Abstracted figures typically appear isolated in glass or steel geometrical cages set against flat, nondescript backgrounds

Inocencio X

Inocencio X, Diego Velazquez, 1650, Oil on Canvas, Barroco

Inocencio X

Inocencio X Scream: Battleship potemkin film – Serguéi M. Eisenstein 1925

Inocencio X

"Flesh and meat are life! If I paint red meat as I paint bodies it is just because I find it very beautiful. I don’t think anyone has ever really understood that. Ham, pigs, tongues, sides of beef seen in the butcher’s window, all that death, I find it very beautiful. And it’s all for sale—how unbelievably surrealistic! I often imagine that the accident that made man into the animal he has become also happened to other animals— lions or hyenas for example—while man remained a primate...I imagine men hanging in butcher’s shops for hyenas, who would be dressed in fur coats. The men would be hung by their feet, or cut up for stew or kebabs."

Inocencio X

Carcass of Beef, 1657, Rembrandt.

Inocencio X

HUMAN PORTRAITS

Triptych May-June 1973 Oil on Canvas, In memory of George Dyer, Bacon’s lover who committed suicide

HUMAN PORTRAITS

Three Studies of Self-Portrait ,1979-80 Oil on Canvas “I loathe my own face…I’ve done a lot of self-portraits, really because people have been dying around me like flies and I’ve nobody else left to paint but myself.”