Francis Bacons Painting (1946)

By Terry Roethlein
Francis Bacons Painting, from 1946, is a work that
formally and thematically challenges, and at times subverts,
much of classical and modern art. Painting is oil and
pastel on canvas and is decidedly a post-World War Two work.
The aggressively political nature of the piece is a feature
akin to the more opinionated works of Goya and Picasso,
shunning the religious content of most works before it. The
pieces painterly style is related most closely to Rembrandt
and Picasso and opposes not only the refined, distanced,
pristine taste of Raphael but also the delicate emotionality
of Monet.
The central figure of the painting is a grotesque man,
or half-man, half-monster, floating within a ground of
predominantly black, pink and violet hues. The man strongly
suggests the persona of a 1940s British politician, wearing
a black businessmans suit that bears a yellow boutonniere
on the left lapel. His head is also covered by a black
umbrella. All three items denote the very professional and
conservative qualities of a British minister or lord, with
the bright yellow of the boutonniere providing a garish
contrast to the brooding black that dominates the figure,
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swirling ominously at the center of the canvas. The most
alarming feature of the politician is the face, half-
obscured by the shadow of the umbrella (the common
accoutrement of the London businessman), with only the grey-
skinned mouth, chin and jaw emerging from the gloom. The
mouth is half-cocked in a snarl, its jaws open, exposing
razor-like teeth and blood-red gums, as if the too-human
feature of lips has been torn away. The white collar, tie
and boutonniere, just below the chin, give the figure a
patina of manhood, but the wolfish gape of the mouth betrays
its actual sinister and bloodthirsty nature.
Bacons negative opinion of the war and the politicians
that encouraged soldiers to kill and be killed in it is
centered on the snaggle-toothed figure but enhanced by the
slaughterhouse setting in which the figure dwells. Behind
the politician is a cruciform cow carcass, a side of beef
stretched between both ends of the painting and hanging from
above. Also suspended from the imagined ceiling are
glistening coils of intestines, hanging like garlands. With
these creative uses of meat as decoration, Bacon suggests
the horrific, festive air that the political class gave the
war in order to make it publicly palatable. The additional
body parts and sides of beef that litter the bottom half of
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the painting, however, confirm the artists judgment of an
elite that has blood on its hands. Pairs of kidney-like
organs stick up from a steel rack in front of the figure,
while a roast and a side of ribs hang from a circular spit.
The floor below appears to be littered with green, red and
white bits of gristle and flesh. Bacons palate of rose and
violet dominate the background, suggesting the hollowed-out
cavity of a butchered animal, or a butchered man.
Three window shades hang on the left, center and right
sections of the background. These may suggest the blinds
that have been pulled to aver the publics vision of the
carnage that goes on during war, or they may refer to the
movie screens used to project images of the German death
camps that the public was allowed to view after the war.
Indeed, right below the left and right screens are what
appear to be barbed wire-topped prison walls, which suggest
a perspective that is obliterated by the dominating
politician and his trappings of gore.
Clearly, with this painting Bacon has abandoned the
respectful religious and political allegiances of past
masters, who would never depict such a blatantly damning
critique of a leader. In Painting, Bacon echoes works by
Goya such as The Disasters of War or The Second of May,
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1808, in which the hideous nature of war and its toll on
the common man are evidenced. Bacon is also most likely
influenced by Picassos 1937 work Guernica, a depiction of
the fascist bombing of Basque Spain. Both artists use an
abstracted but obviously biased and terror-inducing style to
indict war.
Bacon has also done away with the academically-approved
stylistic systems that Alberti instituted and Michelangelo
and Raphael perfected. Here there is no idealization of the
human form or perfection in nature. Rules of perspective and
circumscription are ignored, although the painting has
strong composition and the reception of light is imbued with
a large amount of contrast. Bacons liberal use of shadow
(surrounding the politician, engulfing the side of beef, and
filling the center of the painting) are suggestive of
Rembrandts use of deep shadow, while the subject matter of
carcasses and screens is reminiscent of the masters
depiction of an anatomy theater in 1632s The Anatomy
Lesson of Dr. Nicholaes Tulp. The figure floating on an
unsteady ground and the disembodied nature of the figure are
related to Picassos 1907 Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, whose
figures are also not at rest and whose limbs fade in and out
of connection to their body.
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Monets impressionistic use of paint is obviously a
precursor to abstractionists like Bacon, with cursory
brushstrokes that are a primary feature of Bacons rendering
of objects such as the meat rack. But Monets light-dappled,
bright, and delicately applied brushwork is quite refined in
comparison to the heavy handed, lurid swathes of color that
Bacon applies. Hence, Bacon uses the basic innovations of
Monet, the early modernist, but also draws on a respected
master like Rembrandt, in his mission to topple not only the
institution of political figures but also that of painterly
academe.

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