Francis Bacon (Modern Masters Series, Vol. 9) (Paperback)

~ Hugh Marlais Davies (Author)

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Product Description

British artist Francis Bacon (1909-1992), one of the foremost artists of the 20th century, is known for his expressive figurative paintings. Perhaps Bacon's most famous image - the so-called "screaming pope" in Study after Vel zquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X (1953) - became the touchstone for the longest series of paintings in his career, the Papal Portraits of 1953. In 1953 "haunted and obsessed by the image...by its perfection", Bacon sought to reinvent Vel zquez's 17th-century Portrait of Pope Innocent X (1650) in the paintings that are the focus of this book. Francis Bacon replaced the grand, official state portrait with an intimate, spontaneous "candid camera" glimpse behind the well-ordered exterior. While the Spanish master Vel zquez portayed the pope ex cathedra, Bacon captured him in camera, as if behind a closed door or through a one-way mirror. This series of eight papal portraits, painted during a period of just a few weeks in the summer of 1953, was brought together for the first time by noted Bacon scholar Hugh M. Davies for a 1999 exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, along with several other works from the same period, including Sphinx I and two Study after Vel zquez paintings from 1950. This book includes an essay by Davies, discussing the artist's influences and sources of imagery for the series, and a previously unpublished interview that Davies conducted with Bacon in 1973. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: Abbeville Press (May 1, 1986)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1558592458
• ISBN-13: 978-1558592452
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,959,271 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars L'art mis en morceaux, December 19, 2003

By A Customer

Le style de Francis Bacon melange l'art d'antan, les artistes contemporains, le photojournalisme et le subconscient de Sigmund Freud. Par exemple, l'Etude d'apres le portrait du Pape Innocent X par Velazquez rappelle le Portrait du Cardinal Filippo Jacinto par Titian et, par des vetements ensanglantes, le style de l'egouttement par Jackson Pollock. Dans le Fragment de la crucifixion la figure qui bat les bras rappelle la Descente de la croix par Rubens et La chahut par Georges Seurat. Surtout dans ses peintures de la crucifixion du Christ, Francis Bacon devient photojournaliste, avec ses themes preferes de l'inhumanite, l'isolement, la trahison et le voyeurisme. Il devient psychanalyste dans le Portrait de Georges Dyer accroupi au style des baigneuses d'Edgar Degas, et dans l'Etude de la nue avec la figure dans le miroir c'est le style des voyeurs de l'arriere-scene par Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Alors lire le livre veut dire que l'on finit par apprendre un peu de l'histoire et de la technique de l'art.

1 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Broken Art, July 26, 2001

By A Customer

FRANCIS BACON puts elements from the art of earlier centuries and the subconscious of Sigmund Freud into the bluntly powerful style of news photography. That style works for his themes of isolation, Peeping Toms, predatory people's inhumanity to others, and treachery, all of which can be found in his crucifixion scenes. I find his art cleverly disturbing, particularly in the way that he reworks Old and New Masters: Day- and Twilight-type figures from Michelangelo's de Medici tomb statues in "Triptych - studies of the human body"; Matthias Grunewald's "The mocking of Christ" in the bandaged eyes of the lone female witness to "Three studies for figures at the base of a crucifixion"; Titian's "Portrait of Cardinal Filippo Archinto" and Jackson Pollock-type drip in the curtain veiling and bloodspattered robe of "Study after Velazquez's portrait of Pope Innocent X"; Rubens' "Descent from the cross" and Georges Seurat's "La chahut" in the figure leaning over the T-shaped cross and the flapping arms showing successive motion in "Fragment of a crucifixion"; Diego Velazquez's "Las meninas" in the right panel-reflected artist of "Studies from the human body"; Rembrandt-type meat side in the European formal portrait-styled "Painting 1946"; Edgar Degas' tub-bathing women in "Portrait of George Dyer crouching"; Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec-type backstage observers in "Study of nude with figure in a mirror"; Marcel Duchamp's "The bride stripped bare by her bachelors, even (the large glass)" in the frustrated, mechanical love of "Three studies of figures on beds"; and Henri Michaux in "Statues and figures in a street" full of tiny dark figures. So Hugh Davies and Sally Yard's helpful text and well-chosen illustrations help reader understanding of what modern art is about and how one painter fits with other times. The authors help me go beyond theme, into art technique: their book applies Max Doerner's THE MATERIALS OF THE ARTIST AND THEIR USE IN PAINTING, Hazel Harrison's MASTER STROKES, and Waldemar Januszczak's TECHNIQUES OF THE WORLD'S GREAT PAINTERS.