APPRECIATING CONTEMPORARY ART
Francis Bacon: Figure in a Landscape (1945)
Masterpieces of modern/contemporary art #3
(The idea behind this series is to let the individual artworks speak directly to us from their own mysterious realm, rather than interpreting and ‘explaining them away’ in conventional terms.)
Figure in a Landscape was once described as ‘attesting to an unspecified catastrophe’ — and it would be hard to find a better opening gambit. It puts us right where we need to be without weakening the force of the imagery in the least. All further commentary is a bit downhill after that.
Unlike Warhol, or Koons, or Beuys, Bacon himself — as a private citizen — was not a part of his art, meaning that he made no special effort to cultivate — or even inhabit — a theatrical persona that would add a dimension to his art that wasn’t already contained in the artworks. Bacon is all about the paintings, so knowing the details of Bacon’s personal life doesn’t add anything significant to his artworks and, if anything, dilutes their cogency by misdirection.
For example, there is a triptych relating to the overdose suicide of his boyfriend George Dyer (Triptych May-June 1973), and the story of Dyer’s death on a toilet and subsequent temporary cover-up make for good reading…
