Francis Bacon was born in Dublin, Ireland, on October 1909. He left home at the age of sixteen and spent two years in Berlin, Germany, and Paris, France.
In Paris he saw an art exhibit by the painter Pablo Picasso (1881–1973). Though he had never taken an art class, Bacon began painting with watercolors. He then settled in London, England, with the intention of establishing himself as an interior decorator and furniture designer. However, he soon turned to painting exclusively.
Bacon began oil painting in 1929. The few early paintings that survive (he destroyed most of them) show that he began as a late cubist (a twentieth-century movement that used geometric shapes). By 1932 he turned to a form of surrealism (using fantastic imagery of the subconscious) based partly on Pablo Picasso's works from about 1925 to 1928. Bacon began to draw attention in 1933 with his work Crucifixion, and the same year he took part in exhibitions in London.
Bacon exhibited very rarely until 1945. It was only after World War II that his paintings became known outside his circle of friends. At this time he also began to paint the human figure. The pictures that made his reputation are of such subjects as a melting head in front of a curtain and a screaming figure crouching under an umbrella.
«What directly interests him is a violence that is involved only with color and line: the violence of a sensation (and not of a representation), a static or potencial violence, a violence of reaction and expression.»[1]
From the 1950s through the end of Bacon's painting career and life in the early 1990s, the consistent theme of his work was the isolation and pain of the individual, with a single figure (usually male) seated or standing in a small, windowless interior, as if confined in a private hell. His subjects were artists, friends, lovers, and even himself. His painting technique consisted of using rags, his hands, and dust along with paint and brush.
The artist died April 28, 1992, in Madrid.
[1] Deleuze, Gilles: Francis Bacon: Logique de la Sensation. 1981. France: Éditions de la Différence. English Translations by Continuum 2003.(Page xii)
Sources:
- Deleuze, Gilles. Francis Bacon: Logique de la Sensation. 1981. France: Éditions de la Différence. English Translations by Continuum 2003. Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation.
- Ficacci, Luigi: Francis Bacon 1909-1992. 2003. Köln: Taschen GmbH.
- Harrison, Charles and Paul Wood. Art in Theory-1900-2000. An Anthology of Changing Ideas. 1992. UK: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
- Wegner, Nicholas and Philip James. Francis bacon Seminar. A Discussion of the Artist. 2004. London, Cv Publications.
PERSONAL REFLECTION ABOUT FRANCIS BACON'S ART:
We are accustomed to appreciate the beauty and the logical in life. And I think every artist work diserves to be seen even if not admired. Those works give us a new (bad or good) perception of things, people and life.
I am an abstract art admirer but Francis Bacon's art appears quite disturbing. He treated the human face and body in a style of extreme distortion and contortion. His paintings expressed images of anger, isolation, horror and degradation with powerful colors and geometric constructions. I like these powerful colors and geometric construtions, but I dislike the contents which reflects violence, sadness, horror, feelings that the human being rejects.
Could it be the expression of his own personal state of mind or the reflection of all the memories left by the War?
