Color in Motion Vol. 114: Francis Bacon
Color in Motion Vol. 114: Francis Bacon
I really only found out about the fine works of figurative painter Francis Bacon through this old David Lynch interview I was reading last week. Lynch was talking about how Bacon is the master of the bon vivant , and “really does it for him” when it comes to painting. Yet one glance at Francis Bacon’s paintings and I am immediately sent to a place I feel comfortable in. These are works of hidden identity & the enigma of man and his touch. I have a feeling I’ll be saying this to a lot of visual artists that I admire, but if Bacon were alive I’d tell him “Thank you sir, I hope one day you can journey to the places you’ve sent me to through your handmade work.” That being said, SCV presents to you the magnificent Francis Bacon.
Francis Bacon is, perhaps, best known through stories of his lifestyle, drinking and proclivities – mentioned here only because they made him legendary in artistic circles. Born Irish but raised in England, Bacon got his start designing furniture and interiors, while painting on the side. It was after a fondness for geometric painting that he developed a Surrealistic lean. Francis Bacon’s work, which burst on the scene in the late 1940s, is characterized by semi-abstracted figures, his fondness of triptychs and choice of disturbing themes.
comfort, eh? hmmmm . . . . looks like bacon need not journey to the places he perhaps sent you. chances are he lived in them. RIP, francis.
Please go back to your Monet and Picasso, aromano@jhsph. Let the big boys do their analyzing
It is funny you say comfort, because he paintings show his discomfort with himself, his sexuality, and his love. I’ve been reading a lot about Bacon recently because all I got for christmas were books on him.
He’s been my favorite painter for years. Interesting human, i would love to go to England to see more of his work. We have some back in Chicago and I’ve seen more in NY, there’s nothing like seeing them in person.
He’s definitely a defining figure for me in terms of creativity.
“I was seventeen. I remember it very, very clearly. I remember looking at a dog-shit on t he pavement and suddenly I relaized, there it is – this is what life is like. Strangely enough it tormented me for months, thill I came to, as it were, accept that here you are, existing for a second, brushed off like flies on a wall…I think of life as meaningless; but we give meaning during our own existence. We create certain attitudes which give it meaning while we exist, though they in themselves are meaningless, really.” F. Bacon, Interview 5, 1975, p. 9, Francis Bacon by Andrew Brighton
“David Sylvester: Perhaps you’d tell me what you feel your painting is concerned with besides appearance. FB: It’s concerned with my kind of psyche, it’s concerned with my kind of – I’m putting it in a very pleasant way – exhilarated despair.”
F. Bacon, Interview 3, 1971-3, p. 11, Francis Bacon by Andrew Brighton