Francis Bacon was born in 1909 in Dublin and died in 1992 in Madrid. Bacon, one of the greatest painters of the twentieth century, remained devoted to figuration and portraiture throughout his career. In his art, modernity and tradition converge. His ectoplasmic figures and faces strain like savage forces of nature against shallow fields of intense color and the sketchy armatures that bind them back to the picture plane. In his gut-wrenching serialization of the human body and its sensations, he showed himself to be the unflinching witness of the hysterical reality of the body and the primal fear of those who inhabit it.
Francis Bacon created some of the most iconic images of wounded and traumatised human beings in post-war art. Drawing inspiration from Surrealism, film, photography and the Old Masters, he developed a distinctive style that made him one of the most widely recognized exponents of figurative art in the 1940s and 1950s. Bacon concentrated his energies on portraiture, often depicting the denizens of the bars and clubs of London’s Soho. His subjects are always depicted as violently distorted, almost raw flesh panels of isolated souls imprisoned and tormented by the dilemmas of existence. One of the most successful British painters of the 20th century, Bacon’s reputation was further enhanced by the widespread return to painting in the ‘art world’ in the 1980s, and after his death he was regarded by some as one of the world’s most important painters.
Bacon’s exhibition at RoyalAcademy is basically dark in terms of space and lighting, with his characteristic vibrant painting style, which has a very strong visual impact and a depressing but distorted atmosphere as soon as you enter the gallery. Some showrooms, however, are brightly decorated and lit, with some bacon paintings in less vibrant shades to create visual impact and appeal.
One of his most famous works is ‘Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion’，Three Studies launched Bacon’s reputation in the mid 1940s and shows the importance of biomorphic Surrealism in forging his early style. Bacon may have originally intended to incorporate the figures in a crucifixion, but his reference to the base of such a composition suggests that he imagined them as part of a predella, the scenes at the bottom of a traditional altarpiece. The twisted bodies are all the more frightening for their vaguely familiar human-like forms, which appear to stretch out toward the viewer in pain and supplication. The perspective lines in the background create a shallow space, alluding to captivity and torture. The figures are based upon the Furies, goddesses of revenge from Greek mythology that play an important role in the Oresteia, a three-part tragedy by Aeschylus. Bacon may have been drawn to the play’s themes of guilt and obsession. The piece profoundly influenced images of the body in post-war British art.
One of Bacon’s passionate creative themes is man and beast, the bulls, baboons, dogs and birds of prey, Francis Bacon’s fascination with the animal kingdom informed his perception of humankind, dominating his prolific career.
This powerful exhibition focuses on Francis Bacon’s fascination with animals. Born the son of a horse-breeder, his experience with animals began at an early age and remained the most prominent thread in his work throughout his expansive 50-year career.
He was particularly fascinated by how his perception of animals shaped and distorted his approach to the human body, feeling that the study of animals was the best way to gain insight into the nature of humankind. Much of his inspiration came from watching animals in the wild on trips to South Africa. The figures that frequent his paintings are barely recognisable as either man or beast, depicted in extreme moments of human existence. A highlight in the exhibition is the trio of bullfight paintings, which will be exhibited together for the first time, with some of his earliest works and his last-ever painting also on display.
Another of his major themes is homosexuality, and bacon has many works of art depicting homosexuality. He is an openly gay man when homosexuality was illegal, Bacon was banished from his family by his conservative father when he was just 16. His life and the work produced throughout his formative years have always been seen to run parallel with some of the most shocking events of the 20th century, as the artist moved between Berlin, Paris and London.
The male nude made its appearance in Bacon’s work in the early 1950s, a time when the nude was not a popular subject in painting and when, perhaps more critically, homosexuality was illegal in Britain. Other British contemporary homosexual artists, such as Robert Colquhoun and Robert MacBryde, steered clear of representing homosexuality, whilst others, such as Keith Vaughan, depicted homosexuality in their art in an ambiguous and diffuse fashion, often with recourse to the homoerotic. Vaughan’s studies of men exercising focused on the strength and virility of the male nude, and were erotically charged without being overtly sexual. In contrast, Bacon chose to be more explicit in his depictions. He did not simply allude to, but pointed to the homosexual act of copulation. Given that Bacon was painting at a time before the legalisation of homosexuality, how can these images be explained and what was Bacon attempting to do? His representations of the homoerotic and homosexual convey social attitudes of the time and are important constructions and mediations of homosexual desire. I explain my motivations by drawing on Bacon’s cultural and theoretical background. What is evident is that there is not one homogeneous interpretation of Bacon’s depiction of homosexuality, but multiple readings, which are interdisciplinary. His depictions can be explained with recourse to his biography, art historical influences, political activism and his existential awareness of death. I also demonstrate how changes in the political landscape affected Bacon’s portrayals in the delineation of what I describe as four thematic phases in Bacon’s art.