Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon was an English painter born in Ireland in 1909 who belonged to the Expressionist movement. Though he had no formal training, he became a sensation due to his subversive innovation in art. Many of his works have a nightmarish quality and he enjoyed the embodiment of the grotesque. He is considered a modern artist due to the time period of his work, but his style largely defies any classification. His work was often subversive and he used the classical triptych form popular during the Renaissance to highlight the evils of man, rather than extol the virtues of God’s love and Christ. He also enjoyed creating subjects in the process of movements which were distorted in a grotesque manner. Not only did he distort traditional painting subjects, but he also created irreverent subjects of his own creation such as the large piece of flesh which is the primary subject in his work Painting. The grotesque factor of the subject contributes to the feelings of disgust and unease that he attempted to create in the viewers of his work which largely resulted from his own emphasis on irreverence. Bacon began the trend of making use of works by other artists in the development of his own original works. His painting Portrait of Pope Innocent X draws from Edward Munch’s famous painting The Scream and the portrait itself is also distorted from a legitimate portrait of the Pope by Diego Velasquez.
Not only did Francis Bacon experiment with painting, but he also worked as an interior designer. This occupation was becoming less rare as the movements of Art Nouveau and Art Deco became more prominent. These movements were international encompassing movements in art that attempted to give value to all creative and design pursuits, whether it had previously been considered a traditional fine art or not. In fact, a great part of Francis Bacon’s fame came from his design work as he was commissioned by many upscale clients such as Gladys MacDermot, a lady in Australia, for whom he redecorated and created a new furniture plan. While in previous decades and centuries this practice of “art” would have been considered below the inspiration of a true artist, it was no longer. However, as this trend reveals, it was becoming more and more mainstream as young artists such as Bacon accepted commissions of this type.
In 1945 he exhibited the work known as Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion. This work was in his characteristic irreverent triptych (a three-sided panel allowing for three separate scenes in one unified work) and Bacon considered it to be his ultimate masterpiece of creation. He also characteristically used heavy gold-gilded frames and distortion to help create an atmosphere of uneasiness in his work.
After a long and productive career, Francis Bacon died in 1992, leaving a legacy of innovative art which had blazed a new trail for modern art of this century in a new, thought-provoking style.
Leave a Reply