January 19, 2005
Francis Bacon #5
There has been a movement in Western academic and artistic circles for reclaiming the body and repositioning its locus and identity. Body theories and body art have become topics of attention as well as subjects of philosophical discussion.
The extensive body of work by Francis Bacon is central to this:
Reactions to Bacon have been hostile.
Consider this quote from Raymond Mortimer, New Statesman and Nation, 14 April 1945 about "Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion"
"[This]seems derived from Picasso's Cruifixion, but further distorted, with ostrich necks and button heads protruding from bags - the whole effect gloomily phallic, like Bosch without the humour. These objects are perched on stools, and depicted as if they were sculpture, as in the Picassos of 1930. I have no doubt of Mr Bacon's uncommon gifts, but these pictures expressing his sence of the atrocious world into which we have survived seems [to me] symbols of outrage rather than works of art. If peace redresses him, he may delight as he now dismays."Oh well.
The bodies in Francis Bacon's figure paintings are distorted.
I have not got very far with my reading of Deleuze's Logic of Sensation have I? I am intrigued by the Bacon isolated the iconic Figure from the rest of the painting which are scrubbed into a blur or a field of colour. This makes them devoid of any illustrative or narrative function. They become a background.
Update
I notice that a Gauche is starting a reading group on this text this spring. Maybe some comments will be posted on a Gauche about the conversations of the reading group.
Maybe I should make reading Logic of Sense into a little project of my own.