It's been a while since I've done one of these...got the itch.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Francis Bacon
Actually, I'm the most ordinary person possible. It's just that I like throwing myself in the gutter. Every artist wants to throw himself into the gutter. It's part of his life, it's a necessity. You might say that I lead a gilded gutter life, I drift from bar to bar, from gambling place to gambling place, and when I don't do those things, I go home and paint some pictures. I am completely amoral. If I hadn't painted I would have been a criminal...I have always known life was absurd. Life is nothing but a series of sensations...Life is so meaningless we might as well try to make ourselves extraordinary...I think of life as meaningless and yet it excites me. I always think that something marvelous is about to happen. How can I trap this transient thing?
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Portrait of Francis Bacon by Bill Brandt, 1963
Francis Bacon, the painter, was born in Dublin, Ireland on October 28, 1909. From what I understand he was, indeed, a descendant of the great 17th century English philosopher of the same name.
The man led a notorious and widely mythologized life trying his hand at many careers from petty theft to manservant to interior design. And, he lived as an openly homosexual man at a time when such a life was lived precariously, at best.
Find out more about the man here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Bacon_(painter)
Francis Bacon's work, in my estimation, is one of the most striking examples of the artist consumed by the
idee fixe. He seemed to be preoccupied with his perceptions of the human spirit (as confined by the human body) that border on the monomaniacal. He would paint the same subject again and again and again. Even going so far as to re-paint entire works decades apart from one another. Admittedly his paintings are confusing - many people hate them vehemently. It's no doubt that his visions are not pretty and are often disturbing, sometimes in ways that are difficult to diagnose.
Oh, and he was also a slob. If you look at pictures of his studio, they look like the city dump...
lol, I love artists
Frankly, it took a little while for Francis Bacon to grow on me, but now he is one of my favorite modern artists. You decide for yourself....
His early works seemed to be heavily influenced by Picasso and other established artists of the time, but still there are hints of the iconoclastic style that was to come...
Self-portrait, 1932
Composition, 1933
Crucifixion, 1933
Figures in a Garden, 1936
Going into the 1940's-50's, Bacon began to synthesize and cement what were to become his signature portraits of men, women & animals displayed, most often isolated and awkward or incoherent and fragmentary, in relation to their stark, unforgiving environments.
Man in a Cap, 1943
The third panel from the triptych Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion, 1944
Figure in a Landscape, 1945
Figure Study, 1945-46
Painting, 1946 (you'll see this painting again in the 1970's)
Portrait, 1949
Head, 1949
Man Kneeling in Grass, 1952
Dog, 1952
Study of a Nude, 1952-53
Two Figures, 1953
Man with Dog, 1953
Study after Velazquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X, 1953
Figure with Meat, 1954
Chimpanzee, 1955
During the 1960's (and carried on into the 1970's & '80's) Bacon metamorphosed his technique once again, especially with his emphasis on lurid color and the more frequent use of the triptych (three paintings created as a set) as a means of conveying his themes. As time progressed, he modified his use of color, but kept re-playing his fixation with loosely configured portraits and torturously posed human figures.
Pope and Chimpanzee, 1962
Study from Innocent X, 1962
Man and Child, 1963
Portrait of Henrietta Moraes, 1963
Portrait of Man with Glasses, 1963 (also in these decades we see the vast prevalence of head-and-shoulder portraits that will become some of Bacon's best known works)
Triptych:
Left panel
Center panel
Right panel
Three Studies for Portrait of George Dyer (on light ground), 1964 (George Dyer was Bacon's lover and frequent model who met him, purportedly, while he was breaking into Bacon's apartment, lol.)
Triptych:
Left panel
Center panel
Right panel
Crucifixion, 1965
Portrait of Lucian Freud, 1965 (Bacon painted many portraits of his good friend and fellow painter, Lucian Freud, whom I showcased in the previous post.)
Portrait of George Dyer Talking, 1966
Study for a Portrait of Lucian Freud, 1966
Four Studies for a Self-Portrait, 1967
(perhaps based on this concept...)
Study for Head of George Dyer, 1967 (I include this one because it is illuminating as to the technique Bacon used to paint these portraits...I think what he captured with just a few brush strokes betrays the genius behind his particular madness.)
Portrait of George Dyer in a Mirror, 1968
Lying Figure, 1969
Study for Bullfight, 1969
Self-portrait, 1970
Second Version of 'Painting, 1946', 1971
Lying Figure in a Mirror, 1971
Figures in Movement, 1973
Triptych:
Left panel
Center panel
Right panel
May-June, 1973
Self-portrait, 1973
Three Figures and a Portrait, 1975
Figures in Movement, 1976
Figure Writing Reflected in a Mirror, 1976
Portrait of Michael Leris, 1976
Seated Figure, 1977
Landscape, 1978
Painting, 1978
Jet of Water, 1979
Two Seated Figures, 1979
Three Figures, One with Shotgun, 1980
Study of a Man Talking, 1981
Water from a Running Tap, 1982
Study for the Human Body, 1982
Sand Dune, 1983
Figures in a Street, 1983
Oedipus and the Sphinx after Ingres, 1983
Figure in Movement, 1985
Painting, March 1985
Some of Bacon's last works before dying of a heart attack in Madrid on April 28, 1992 at the age of 82.
Man at Washbasin, 1989-90
Portrait of Jacques Dupin, 1990
Study for Human Body, 1991
Triptych, 1991