Francis Bacon was born in Dublin, Ireland on October 28, 1909. As a child, he suffered from Asthma, a condition which prevented him attending formal schools. Instead, his parents chose to have him taught and tutored at home. He travelled around Europe in his young life and eventually settled in London. He began his artist life after spending a short time as an interior decorator. His art career was mostly self-taught but it was also consistent with the Cubist and Surrealists styles. As he concluded his art career, he had been labelled as an Expressionist artist. He used large canvasses to create his paintings which, during the early points of his career, consisted of human figures and the crucifixion. He is, especially, remembered for his famous paintings known as the “screaming popes.” Francis Bacon was a homosexual who, actually, left his home at the age of 17 years because his parents failed to approve of his sexuality (Peppiatt, 2009).
Artists Working in the Same Style
Bacon did not have a particular style of painting and cannot therefore, be placed in a particular context of art style or movement. However, he once developed a series of paintings that were, according to Alphen (2009), inspired by Diego Velazquez. The particular series included canvass paintings of human figures which could be in an empty room, inside a cage, or against a black background. The style was borrowed from Diego Velazquez who once created an image of Pope Innocent X. Despite borrowing from this style, Bacon added a lot of features which included dark colors, distorted figures, and rough brushwork. Bacon’s work also featured a lot of traditional religious themes borrowed from renaissance artists including Leonardo da Vinci. Religious themes created by Bacon demonstrated nudity and human figures depicting the concepts of alienation, suffering, and violence. Although he seemed to borrow a lot from traditional painters, once can rightly conclude that his work was influenced by the violence he witnessed during the Second World War. It is also possible that he borrowed from colleague artists who included Lucian Freud and George Dyer.
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Formal Critique of Some Works
Study after Velazquez’s Portrait of Innocent X also known as Screaming Popes
Francis Bacon painted the famous piece in 1953 in response to Velazquez’s painting of 1650. Bacon believed that art is progressive and the creations of paintings reflect their inner beliefs based on their environment and experiences. The original painting by Velazquez depicts the dignity, authority, and position of the Pope who was the most powerful figure at that time. In the painting, the Pope is in a relaxed, powerful, and commanding state perhaps demonstrating the position he occupies in the world. At the time of the painting, people believed in God more and usually found solace in religion. When Bacon created his painting, the world was in chaos as it had witnessed two global ways and witnessed horrible deaths of many people (Arya, 2008). Violence and suffering reminded people, and especially, Bacon, of the mortality which religion had strived to make them forget. In expanding this argument, Bacon argued that art is a method of responding to cultural shifts and reminding people of the differences between the historical and contemporary conditions. By contrasting the image of the Pope created by Velazquez and himself, he demonstrated the changes that religion had undergone since the former’s time. Specifically, the commanding and powerful image of the pope is replaced with a chaotic and horrified papal figure which perhaps, demonstrates death of power and command of the Church. Papal themes such as the hat, the throne, robs, and other vestments are maintained but the relaxation is replaced by fear as the Pope is screaming. Therefore, one can conclude that Bacon expressed death of peace, harmony, and unity that the Church represented owing to occurrence of the Second World War.
Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion
Three Studies for Figures at the Base of Crucifixion is a famed piece created by Francis Bacon in 1944. Art scholars agree that despite its reference to Christian imagery and traditional themes, it does not refer to the Crucifixion of Christ literally. One of the reasons informing this argument is that he was an atheist who detested the idea of religion and especially that of Christianity. In fact, there is a general agree that this work which presents three figures of mutilated human bodies are Bacon’s interpretation of the three goddesses of vengeance in Greek Mythology. The three goddesses, known as Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone punished human beings who committed crimes that surpassed human justice. Having witnessed the violence of the Second World War and details of the Nazi Camps emerging, one can rightly conclude that this painting was Bacon’s interpretation of the war. In other words, it was own metaphor of the ease at which the human spirit can be corrupted. It also details his own view of people’s inhumanity to one another (Peppiatt, 2014).
The series of images in this painting are actually consistent with Christian symbolism as they were first used in altarpieces. However, he employs his own style to tell a narrative that is, in fact, secular and subjective to his opinions towards human nature. Given the context of time in which the painting was developed, it is possible, according to Alphen (2009), to argue that the painting was desecration amplifying his shock and emotional responses to what he had witnessed. Additionally, he used the triptych arrangement to insert psychological elements into the narrative he was telling.
References
Alphen, E. V. (2009). Francis Bacon and the loss of self . London: Reaktion Books.
Arya, R. (2008). Painting the Pope: An Analysis of Francis Bacons Study AfterVelazquezs Portrait of Innocent X. Literature and Theology, 23 (1), 33-50. doi:10.1093/litthe/frn039
Peppiatt, M. (2014). Francis Bacon: Anatomy of an Enigma . London: Robinson.
