Study after Velazquez’s Portrait of Pop Innocent X
This was the first piece I ever saw by Francis Bacon. I was a typical angry teenager, and this painting expressed everything I felt inside. The religious connotations added that extra punch that brought everything home for me, as I was beginning to question the belief systems I had grown up with.
In a previous post, I mentioned my attraction to the juxtaposition of Francis Bacon’s work against that of Piet Mondrian’s [early work]. Both incorporated religious iconography and themes, but the effect on the viewer couldn’t be more different (contemplative/peaceful vs. violent/aggressive). I created a diptych at the School of the Arts that mimicked and highlighted the contradictions present in the two artists’ work. (If I can find those two old paintings, I’ll try to post images of them.)
I can’t find the title for this one.
I’ve always been interested in the relationships between the physical and energetic bodies (see my yoga practice here), so Bacon's deformed, bulbous forms fascinate me. His interpretation of the body was so twisted, so painful — It seemed like I could really feel, inside my own body and beyond the literal image on the canvas, what was being depicted from an emotional and spiritual point of view. I think the placement of the body in the center of a red, round, unfurnished room adds to the visceral, biological quality of the piece.
Portrait of Lucian Freud by Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon was close friends with another well-known artist, Lucian Freud, and the two bounced ideas off one another and collaborated for decades. Eventually, they began to create portraits of each other.
Bacon said of his portraits, “I would wish my portraits to be of the people, not like them. Not having a look of the sitter, being them. I didn't want to get just a likeness like a mimic, but to portray them, like an actor. As far as I am concerned the paint is the person. I want it to work for me just as flesh does.”
Portrait of Francis Bacon by Lucian Freud
