Bacon, Francis

Another equisite title to accompany a Fondation Beyeler exhibition!.......2005-08-16

Translated and with an Introduction by Daniel W. Smith
Afterword by Tom Conley

Gilles Deleuze had several paintings by Francis Bacon hanging in his Paris apartment, and the painter’s method and style as well as his motifs of seriality, difference, and repetition influenced Deleuze’s work. This first English translation shows us one of the most original and important French philosophers of the twentieth century in intimate confrontation with one of that century’s most original and important painters.

In considering Bacon, Deleuze offers implicit and explicit insights into the origins and development of his own philosophical and aesthetic ideas, ideas that represent a turning point in his intellectual trajectory. First published in French in 1981, Francis Bacon has come to be recognized as one of Deleuze’s most significant texts in aesthetics. Anticipating his work on cinema, the baroque, and literary criticism, the book can be read not only as a study of Bacon’s paintings but also as a crucial text within Deleuze’s broader philosophy of art.

In it, Deleuze creates a series of philosophical concepts, each of which relates to a particular aspect of Bacon’s paintings but at the same time finds a place in the “general logic of sensation.” Illuminating Bacon’s paintings, the nonrational logic of sensation, and the act of painting itself, this work—presented in lucid and nuanced translation—also points beyond painting toward connections with other arts such as music, cinema, and literature. Francis Bacon is an indispensable entry point into the conceptual proliferation of Deleuze’s philosophy as a whole.

Gilles Deleuze (1925–1995) was professor of philosophy at the University of Paris, Vincennes–St. Denis. He coauthored Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus with Félix Guattari. These works, as well as Cinema 1, Cinema 2, The Fold, Proust and Signs, and others, are published in English by Minnesota.

Daniel W. Smith teaches in the Department of Philosophy at Purdue University.

Still one of the most fascinating books on the nature of creativity ever published........2005-11-13

The final chapter is the most biographical. Bacon, 77, recaps his life and career in detail, including his "coming out," at a time homosexuality was illegal in Britain, the relationship with his intolerant father coming to an end as a result. Overall, the book forms a clear portrait of an intellectually restless artist, demonized by the struggle to express satisfactorily the horrific images which constantly stream into his head. There is no overarching structure to the book, thus many interviews cover the same ground different ways, with illuminating results. Bacon's answers usually reinforce or embellish what was said earlier, but he sometimes answers the same question differently over time, demonstrated for example by his increasing dislike for "drink and drugs."

Some themes persist throughout. Chronically anxious and hypertensive, he can never sit still, never relax. Not religious, Bacon believes "man is an accident, a futile being, he must play out the game without reason," and life has only whatever meaning we give it, yet his haunted soul clearly identifies with the tragedy of the Crucifixion, which he considers the perfect narrative of the mythic "tragic hero," and the ultimate symbol of human devotion despite life's vicissitudes. (One famous Bacon work metaphorically depicts a hypodermic syringe stuck into the subject's arm, representing a nail stuck into the hand). He is similarly affected by the open-mouthed cry of human agony, which he expresses in perhaps his most famous and retold obsession, the many horrifying studies of Velazquez's portrait of Pope Innocent X.

Too human, he is concerned with posterity, and denies himself the comfort of calling himself a "painter." He believes an artist must "solve the problem" of art to be a success, which to him means they must render the known through the unknown, or create the "illustrative" and "narrative" through the use of the "irrational." Discussing Picasso in this light, he says he finds surrealism "more real" than realism, probably meaning he finds surrealism more directly communicates the human condition. He also believes strongly in figuration, slaying abstract art with one devastating word: "Fashion!" He seems burdened by a lack of proper training, having started his career as an interior designer, especially when discussing the trials of his studio work, describing the way he tosses paint at the canvas, the way he tries not to work a canvas too much, potentially ruining it, and the conflicted feelings he holds toward works he has already painted, or those he is still painting.

The book usefully reproduces many works in small black-and-white images at times when the conversation turns to them, both Bacon's works and those of others, like Picasso and Rembrandt. The lack of color is entirely unnoticed, as the book focuses on the artist's psychology and opinion, which these plates illustrate perfectly. (Full-color reproduction would probably also have made the book needlessly expensive). Most remarkably, of all the photographs and self-portraits in the book, Bacon never looks directly at the viewer, illustrating most strikingly his natural over-sensitivity and tortured self-denial.

Bacon has said "art is completely a game by which man distracts himself," and "the artist must really deepen the game in order to be worth anything at all." If anyone feels Bacon "played the game" well, and "distracts" successfully his audience, or that he was "worth anything at all," then this book belongs in that person's library.

John White

The Cambridge Companion to Bacon (Cambridge Companions to Philosophy)

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The Cambridge Companion to Bacon (Cambridge Companions to Philosophy)

Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 052143534X

Succinct yet Inclusive Biography of Francis Bacon through his Art.......2005-12-13

From the screaming heads and snarling chimpanzees of the late 1940s to the anonymous figures trapped in tortured isolation some ten years later, during one crucial decade British artist Francis Bacon created many of the most central and memorable images of his entire career. The artist enters the decade of the 1950s in search of himself and his true subject; he finishes ten years later having completed some of his great masterpieces and having acquired technical mastery over one of the most disturbing and revealing visions of the 20th century.
This book brings both Bacon the man and Bacon the painter vividly to life, focusing for the first time on this key period in his development. Michael Peppiatt, the leading authority on Bacon and a close friend of the artist for thirty years, reveals essential keys to understanding Bacon's mysterious and subversive art. The book presents and assesses a wide range of paintings (many of them rarely seen before) representing all of Bacon's major themes during the 1950s. Also included is an account of the artist's life in the 1950s.