A DAY IN THE LIFE

Born in Dublin, Ireland = 1909 son of English parents = troubled relationship with father and family due to homosexuality According to Bacon his first serious painting = 1944 3 Studies for Figures at the Base of the Crucifixion Although his first original work was Crucifixion = 1933 Obsessed with Velasquez and Picasso and believed Egyptian statues to be the greatest things ever made Started out as interior decorator/furniture designer in South Kensington, England Never attended art school or had formal art instruction = wanted to make up own techniques = trial/error 1933 1938 almost none of Bacons work survived = he destroyed most of his work = self -editing Only painted on the back of canvases = unprinted side Did not believe in painting over as every mark is to be the first mark Bacon also loved photographs as they represent what is there and nothing else = wanted to achieve the same idea through his paintings

THEMES
Crucifixion Inocencio X
(Papal Heads)

Human Portraits
(Half human, grotesque portraits)

Crucifixion
First original work Appears to be skeleton of poultry Brutality/fear/sacrifice Bacon was an atheist as a non-believer, it was just an act of mans behaviour

1933

Crucifixion

Three Studies For Figures at the base of a Crucifixion, 1944 Religion: How a man can torture other man Oil paint on 3 boards, Each: 940 x 737 mm Sadomasochism The Scream Triptych The Eumenides Abstracted figures typically appear isolated in glass or steel geometrical cages set against flat, nondescript backgrounds

Crucifixion
Religion: How a man can torture other man
He wanted to make the body the visible sign of the

eternal devils of human nature, the dog beneath

the skin that bares its fangs in war and in bed.

Peter Paul Rubens's 1612-1614 triptych The Descent from the Cross

Crucifixion
Bacon is so interested in the mouth, as a human body part. He says the mouth has lovely vibrations of color

"Flesh and meat are life! If I paint red meat as I paint bodies it is just because I find it very beautiful. I dont think anyone has ever really understood that. Ham, pigs, tongues, sides of beef seen in the butchers window, all that death, I find it very beautiful. And its all for salehow unbelievably surrealistic! I often imagine that the accident that made man into the animal he has become also happened to other animalslions or hyenas for examplewhile man remained a primate...I imagine men hanging in butchers shops for hyenas, who would be dressed in fur coats. The men would be hung by their feet, or cut up for stew or kebabs."

FACT
Book that influenced Bacons art

Crucifixion

Cimabue, Crucifix, 1268-71, Tempera on wood, 336 x 267 cm, San Domenico, Arezzo

Crucifixion

Three studies for a crucifixion 1965

figuras encerradas en espacios cerrados (cubos y crculos = plazas de toros)

Crucifixion
Eumenides the vengeful furies
of Greek myth, associating them within a mythological tradition.

Evil, guilty and vengeance.

Represent on shadows and beast

Adolphe Bouguereau - The Remorse of Orestes (1862)

Sadomasoquismo

Crucifixion

Three studies for a crucifixion 1962

Abstracted figures typically appear isolated in glass or steel

geometrical cages set against flat, nondescript backgrounds

Inocencio X

Inocencio X, Diego Velazquez, 1650, Oil on Canvas, Barroco

Inocencio X

Inocencio X
Scream:
Battleship potemkin film Sergui M. Eisenstein 1925

Inocencio X

"Flesh and meat are life! If I paint red meat as I paint bodies it is just because I find it very beautiful. I dont think an yone has ever really understood that. Ham, pigs, tongues, sides of beef seen in the butchers window, all that death, I find it very beautiful. An d its all for salehow unbelievably surrealistic! I often imagine that the accident that made man into the animal he has become also happened to other animals lions or hyenas for examplewhile man remained a primate...I imagine men hanging in butchers shops for hyenas, who would be dressed in fur coats. The men would be hung by their feet, or cut up for stew or kebabs."

Inocencio X

Carcass of Beef, 1657, Rembrandt.

Inocencio X

HUMAN PORTRAITS

Triptych May-June 1973 Oil on Canvas, In memory of George Dyer, Bacons lover who committed suicide

HUMAN PORTRAITS

Three Studies of Self-Portrait ,1979-80 Oil on Canvas I loathe my own faceIve done a lot of self-portraits, really because people have been dying around me like flies and Ive nobody else left to paint but myself.