Francis Bacon and the Masters review – a cruel exposure of a con artist

Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, University of East Anglia
Placed beside Picasso, Velázquez, Matisse, Rodin and others, Soho’s perverse putdown master emerges from a conversation with genius with no real heart – and absolutely nothing to say

Francis Bacon was the divine devil of modern British art, a demon of dark ecstasy. His pummelling of human flesh has a monstrous sensuality, a massive power. Usually, seeing a Bacon, I drink in its perverse colours like blood or wine. At least, I used to. After this exhibition, I don’t know if I can ever take Francis Bacon seriously again.

What a shame. All his life, Bacon looked at and wanted to reinvent the art of the great masters. This show opens with giant photographs of his mad nest of a studio, its paint-stained floor littered with reproductions of works by the art heroes he longed to rival. His paintings of imprisoned popes were inspired by Velázquez’s portrait of Innocent X; his contortions of the human body by Michelangelo’s turbulent statues. It surely makes sense to set Bacon’s paintings side by side with works by the masters he loved.

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