Francis Bacon [Paperback]

Gilles Deleuze (Author), Daniel W. Smith (Translator)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0826473180 | ISBN-13: 978-0826473189 | Publication Date: January 2001

The book presents a deep engagement with Bacon's work and the nature of art. Deleuze analyses the distinctive innovations that came to mark Bacon's style: the isolation of the figure, the violent deformations of the flesh, the complex use of colour, the method of chance, and the use of the triptych form. Along the way, Deleuze introduces a number of his own famous concepts, such as the "body without organs" and the "diagram", and contrasts his own approach to painting with that of both the phenomenological and the art historical traditions. Deleuze links Bacon's work to Cezanne's notion of a "logic" of sensation, which reaches its summit in colour and the "colouring sensation." Investigating this logic, Deleuze explores Bacon's crucial relation to past painters such as Velasquez, Cezanne, and Soutine, as well as Bacon's rejection of expressionism and abstract painting. Long awaited in translation, Francis Bacon is destined to become a classic philosophical reflection on the nature of painting.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'Altogether, an entertaining read' Art Monthly; 'A lively and systematic study of Bacon's work. The book is clearly organised, helping to make complicated arguments easier to follow.' Modern Painters; 'A path-breaking work on the aesthetics of sensation, the philosophy of colour, on form, and on painting in general, Francis Bacon is one of the most important, if not the most crucial, of all of Deleuze's writings.' Tom Conley, Harvard University

About the Author

Gilles Deleuze (1925-1995) was professor of philosophy at the University of Paris. He is the co-author of Anti-Oedipus, A Thousand Plateaus, and author of Cinema 1, Cinema 2, Foucault, The Fold, Dialogues, Logic of Sense, Kant's Critical Philosophy, all published by Continuum.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Continuum International Publishing Group (January 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0826473180
• ISBN-13: 978-0826473189
• Product Dimensions: 7.3 x 5.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,803,517 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Cerebral Bacon, July 18, 2006

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Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation (Paperback)

Gilles Deleuze is one of France's most important philosophers, and in that role he has influenced many branches of the arts with his scholarly investigation of the subjects he chooses to investigate.

Deleuze here writes about the 'sensational' aspects of Francis Bacon's art, art which he knows well, living with several of Bacon's works in his home. His exploration of the inspiration of Bacon's various trademark strokes and subjects grows naturally out of his applying philosophical musings on visual subjects: this book is a thesis on aesthetics for which Bacon is simply but powerfully the nidus.

Though the book was written in 1981, it remains one of the more fascinating books on aesthetics and the influences on Bacon's work along with sidebars on music, film, and writing that make the work more of an informed 'novel' than simply the intellectual volume it is. For this reader the addition of more visuals would have made more of an impact, but the writing (or translation from the French!) is so seethingly seductive that soon the visuals would become secondary. This is a tough read but a most important one. Grady Harp, July 06

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a rare insight into the life of a painter, May 22, 2009

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Neal D. E. Rock "larock" (LA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation (Paperback)

I've been a painter now for over 20 years and very rarely have I come across the kind of insight and intelligence demonstrated in this wonderful book. For some reason at art school I avoided Deleuze but I'm glad I found him at what is probably the right time for me and my development as a painter.

I also read this book after seeing the recent Bacon retrospective at Tate Britain and its words resonated all the more clearly for this. As a discussion on the life and work of Bacon I feel it is insightful if not biographically informative (but that's not really the aim or purpose here), but Deleuze goes much further than this. At its best it offers a series of interpretive, intellectual models of analysis for artists. Like Bergson before him, Deleuze offers a non prescriptive and discursive manual for others to spring from. It manages to confront that terrible old dichotomy of theory versus practice by creating a performative space in written language that has a qualitative relationship to the stuff of paint, bodily movement, smell and touch.

A must have book, not just for painters but for anyone interested in visual art and philosophy. It's also a very good introduction to the work of one the 20th century's greatest thinkers

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars modernist polemics, July 11, 2007

By 

William Theodoracopulos - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation (Paperback)

this is an excellent book for any artist or intellectual interested in modern art. Deleuze understands the canvas better than bacon,creating powerful justifications for the modern approach to art .
though people criticize him for unintelligable thinking,i feel it is more appropriate to say deleuze wages a war on the cliche, which includes our habitual methods of thinking...to understand deleuze is to graduate from the sterile plane of habitual thought and enter a zone of creativity ..a zone that deleuze recognizes as the arena of art..