Francis Bacon (1909-1992) was an Irish painter known for his surrealist canvases, largely influenced by Picasso’s cubist works. Bacon paints unease and violence in dark canvases, with particularly weighty themes such as war, crucifixion and existentialist questions…
Francis Bacon was born in Dublin on October 28, 1909. His English family raised him between London and Dublin for most of his youth. Francis had health problems from an early age: he was diagnosed with asthma, and his body was very fragile. The latter is permanently ill, and his father tries to strengthen him by administering lashes.
Francis Bacon discovered his homosexuality at the age of 17, when his father caught him trying on his mother’s dresses. Faced with this situation, Francis Bacon was expelled from the family home, but still received some income from his mother.
Francis decided to travel, and moved for a time to Berlin, then Paris. He led a bohemian lifestyle, and surrounded himself with a circle of artists. He then returned to London to become a decorator. At the same time, he tried his hand at painting, producing surrealist canvases inspired by Picasso, Velasquez and Rembrandt.
His success as a painter didn’t begin until 1945, with the painting “Trois études de figures au pied d’une crucifixion” (“Three studies of figures at the foot of a crucifixion”). The work is shocking, showing the horror of war with raw images of bodies dehumanized to the extreme, frozen in disturbing horror. The picture bothers, confuses and questions. It makes a lasting impression, and breaks with people’s desire to forget the War that has just ended.
In 1960, Francis Bacon joined the London School, where he worked with great names such as Lucian Freud and Frank Auerbach. Here, he matured his art, experimented with new movements, and delivered a painting free of all violence. From now on, he focuses on “painting the scream, rather than the horror”, and nuances with great talent the notions of violence and excess. Most of his canvases are particularly dark, however, and create a sense of unease… These works are nightmarish, as if born of our worst fears…
Francis Bacon died in 1992, after a full and critically acclaimed life. He is still considered one of the great talents of twentieth-century painting…
I believe that man today realizes that he is an accident, that his existence is futile and that he has to play a foolish game.
