Customer Reviews

Francis Bacon: Incunabula

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

First of all, I don't know what a previous reviewer means when he writes this book is well written as it only contains a one page introduction by Barbara Dawson and an essay by Martin Harrison entitled "Bacon's Incunabula" barely four pages long. By Incunabula are meant the circa 180 full page illustrations of various objects that were found in Bacon's Reece Mews Studio formerly located in London and consequently moved to the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin. There is no Index, but the objects are divided into the following categories:
1. Art - Photography, mostly photos ripped out of Muybridge's book, "The Human figure in Motion", books on sculpture and also erotic magazines.
2. Conflict - Mass Media, mostly images torn from newspapers and magazines, many of which depict violence or the aftermath of violence, such as dead bodies, effects from injuries etc.
3. Action - Painting, more images from Muybridge, but also photos from art and sports magazines.
4. Science - Nature, images torn from K.C. Clark's books on "Positioning in Radiography", Schrenk-Notzing's " Phenomena of Materialization" , more Muybridge, and also images from cookbooks etc.
5. Art - Photography - Art, images torn from Art Book and Catalogs, including Bacon's own work
At the end of the book there is a brief section of "Commentaries" with short descriptions of a sentence or two on each image.

Even though it is claimed that many of the images have not been published before, I have seen more than three fourths in other books on Francis Bacon. I really do not know what purpose this book can serve, other than the fact that the objects are shown in a larger size than before with one image per page. As a collector of book on Francis Bacon I continue to be amazed how many recent books concentrate on his Studio instead of his art. The objects in the studio are supposed to be the "key" to Bacon's paintings, but I would argue they are in most cases only an inspiration. Conspicuously absent from this book are photographs of of Bacon himself and the people he painted. Granted there are a few of Peter Lacy and George Dyer, but not of the many other people he painted. The authors fail to make a case of how the majority of the images in this book are related to Bacon's paintings, which one would think is the whole point of the exercise.

Still there are a few pluses here. The book is well bound, and printed on quality paper. The full page images are of interest and are well printed, plus best of all for collectors, this book is not likely to stay in print long and should accrue in value.

Review by Walter O. Koenig

Francis Bacon continues to grow in stature as one of the most significant artists of the last century. There are countless books both in print and out of print as collector's items that survey his artistic output, dissections of his psychological makeup, his preoccupation with distortion and grotesquerie, books that focus only on his portraits, catalogues that accompanied his exhibitions while he was alive, and several fine retrospective studies that explore his early 'design' career up to and including his final large canvases or triptychs. There are also several excellent films, both from Hollywood and from interviews. So why does this artist's life and talent garner so much continued exploration? This excellent book FRANCIS BACON: INCUNABULA shines some light on this question. 'Incunabula' is defined as the earliest stages or first traces of anything.

Martin Harrison and Rebecca Daniels have gathered much of the stimuli that fed Bacon's imagination - bits of torn photographs, newspaper clippings, pages torn from cookbooks, art books, and other paraphernalia. These images are then paired with the canvases that Bacon derived from the detritus that gathered around him in his infamously cluttered and filthy Reece Mews studio in London. Though Bacon repeated painted portraits of his friends and lovers he seldom 'painted from the model' in studio. Photographs and studies of animals and people in motion infused his perceptions of his 'models' and the results of seeing some of these gathered idea fragments in context makes Bacon's portraiture even more satisfying.

Even for those who are collecting multiple volumes about the fascinating Francis Bacon, this book is a welcome addition to the library. It is well written, well designed and fills a void about which we to date have known very little. Grady Harp, October 09