Francis Bacon (October 28, 1909 – April 28, 1992) was a British-Irish painter born in Dublin. During childhood, Bacon had no interest in painting and would work/play on his English parent’s farm.
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| Francis Bacon |
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| Self Portrait. 1970. Oil on canvas, 60 X 58" |
At age 16, he left his parents and moved to London where he worked an office job before, then, moving to Berlin…then Paris. After moving to Paris in 1929, Bacon started drawing, watercolor painting, and interior decorating. Unfortunately, his works from this period are lost.
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| Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion, 1944, oil and pastel on cardboard 37 X 43.125". |
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| Study of a Baboon. 1953. Oil on canvas, 77X53" |
In 1931, Bacon quit as an interior decorator to focus on only oil painting, after a slow developing inspiration through the surrealist/abstract movement of England, Pablo Picasso, Lucian Freud, and other painters.
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| Study for Portrait. 1949. Oil on canvas, 58 X 51" |
In 1936 the International Surrealist Exhibition rejected Bacon's work viewing it as “not sufficiently surreal.”
A unique quality that can be seen through Bacon's self-portraits is the depiction of movement as the convolutions of the face can be seen as the same face in different positions. His unique style shows inspiration from surrealism, cubism, expressionism,...and photography.
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| Self Portrait. 1969. Oil on canvas, 14 X 12" |
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| Fragment of a Crucifixion. 1950. Oil and absorbent cotton on canvas. |
After the invention of photography, painting needed to be more than a rendering of a moment in time. Bacon incorporated gesture and motion in ways more grounded to life than a photographic motion blur. It addresses the temporal nature of the world from a still.
Francis Bacon created emotional work, stylized with savage colors, unapologetic imagery, and yet a traditional approach.
Literature aside, a good quote to end on.
"If you can talk about it, why paint it?" - Francis Bacon
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| Study of a Nude. 1952-53. Oil on canvas, 24 X 20" |
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| Painting. 1946. Oil and Tempera on canvas, 77 X 52" |
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| Two Figures. 1953. Oil on canvas, 60 X 46" |
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Paralytic Child Walking on All Fours (from Muybridge). 1961, Oil on canvas, 77 X 55"
Source:
Bacon, Francis and Lorenza Trucchi. Francis Bacon. New York : H.N. Abrams, 1975., 1975. |
I've only ever heard of Francis Bacon's name but I never actually viewed any of his works. Now looking at them I really appreciate how unusual and individual his pieces are. I always enjoy looking at people's when it seems it could only come from that person's imagination and no where else. I really like his work even if some of the paintings seem a little too out of the ordinary.
ReplyDeleteAin't he nifty? I like looking at the mouths he paints. They're definitely a focus point with more detail and paracannibalistic positioning. Looking at "Fragment of a Crucifixion" it shows how adding just one well-known body part can lead the imagination to configure an entire body to connect with it.
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ReplyDeleteI dig that quote. I'm not sure I can say I've reached a point where painting helps me express what I don't know how to talk about, but I certainly relate to the quote when it comes to my writing. Which is maybe, technically a form of saying, but to me is more like expression through written word what I can't capture in spoken word.
ReplyDeleteFrancis Bacon's painting actually scares me a bit. their is something primitive and frightening in the way he paints. I'm not saying its bad, it just induces fear a tiny bit.
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