Bacon

by Francis Bacon

Francis Bacon (1909-1992), arguably the preeminent British painter of the twentieth century, was also for forty years the most controversial. Bacon's art often appears deliberately disturbing. His subject was the human form. Bacon reinterpreted the physical construction of the body with a new and unsettling intensity. To him it was something to be taken apart by the artist's penetrating gaze and then put back together again on canvas. He forces us to see, perhaps for the first time, the separate shapes and stresses hidden in the familiar human figure. Bacon's treatment of the face could be especially challenging. In his portraits, generally of people the artist knew well, the subjects are sometimes shown screaming. Even in repose the features shift and reshape themselves before our eyes, yet they never become unrecognizable despite the swirling paint. Often called an Expressionist or even a Surrealist, Bacon himself strongly rejected both labels. He insisted that in its own way his work was close to the world we see every day, remaining true to what he called "the brutality of fact." This book reproduces in full color sixty-eight of Bacon's most important paintings, including several of his well-known triptychs. Completing the volume are documentary photographs of Bacon's studio, his associates and models, and works by other artists that affected Bacon's paintings.

Genres: Art

64 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1965

About the author

Francis^^Bacon
For the Elizabethan philosopher, see Francis Bacon.

In portraits of best known Irish-British painter Francis Bacon, terror invests distorted subjects.

Artwork of this figurative collateral descendant of the Elizabethan philosopher Francis Bacon displays bold, austere, and often grotesque or nightmarish imagery.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis...

Reviews

[Phil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not actually *by* the painter, this brief introduction to Francis Bacon's work is attributed to no author, though the text was apparently translated from the Spanish. It is a sound, if stripped-down, account of his aesthetic and some of his methods, which, given Bacon's own dislike of the over-analysis of his work, may be appropriate. Its principal interest is in the many plates it contains, illustrating a great range of the man's oeuvre - although these are nowhere near big enough and cannot, in any case, render fully the texture and physicality of the originals.

[Michael Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's no one better at taking you to the depth of your soul and wanting to scream out in agony.