Triptych, 1987
Francis Bacon
Oil, pastel and aerosol paint on canvas
After the Bullfight
The bullfight paintings of 1969 encapsulated Bacon’s meditations on the blurring of man and beast. Nearly two decades later, he made his only triptych on the subject.
Here, the excitement is over, leaving behind the wounds of the matador, the bowed head and bloodied horns of the bull, with a spectral ‘fury’ hovering above.
When evoking the aftermath of the bullfight, Bacon may have had in mind Federico García Lorca’s 1935 poem ‘Lament for Ignacio Sánchez Mejías’, with its repeated refrain ‘At five in the afternoon’, which readers of the poem discover is the time of day that the young bullfighter dies.
Bacon was convinced that there ‘is an area of the nervous system to which the texture of paint communicates more violently than anything else’. His fascination with the physicality of our bodies and the unmoderated behaviour of animals were touchstones for his art.
Beginning with the hybrid creatures of the 1940s and animal studies of the 1950s, these interests ultimately found expression in his powerful paintings of the human form, which continue to resonate in new ways as generations pass.
[Royal Academy]
From the exhibition
Francis Bacon: Man and Beast
(January — April 2022)
Irish-born artist Francis Bacon was the horse-breeder’s son who became one of the most important painters of the 20th century.
An openly gay man at a time when homosexuality was illegal, he was banished from his conservative family home by his father at 16. After that, he drifted through Berlin and Paris before establishing himself in London, with his formative years running parallel with some of the 20th century’s most profoundly disturbing events.
This powerful exhibition will focus on Bacon’s unerring fascination with animals: how it both shaped his approach to the human body and distorted it; how, caught at the most extreme moments of existence, his figures are barely recognisable as either human or beast.
It also explores how Bacon was mesmerised by animal movement, observing animals in the wild during trips to South Africa; filling his studio with wildlife books, and constantly referring to Eadweard Muybridge’s 19th-century photographs of humans and animals in motion. Whether chimpanzees, bulls, dogs, or birds of prey, Bacon felt he could get closer to understanding the true nature of humankind by watching the uninhibited behaviour of animals.
Spanning Bacon’s 50-year career, highlights include some of Bacon’s earliest works and his last-ever painting, alongside a trio of bullfight paintings which will be exhibited together for the first time.
[Royal Academy]
Triptych, 1987
Francis Bacon
Oil, pastel and aerosol paint on canvas
After the Bullfight
The bullfight paintings of 1969 encapsulated Bacon’s meditations on the blurring of man and beast. Nearly two decades later, he made his only triptych on the subject.
Here, the excitement is over, leaving behind the wounds of the matador, the bowed head and bloodied horns of the bull, with a spectral ‘fury’ hovering above.
When evoking the aftermath of the bullfight, Bacon may have had in mind Federico García Lorca’s 1935 poem ‘Lament for Ignacio Sánchez Mejías’, with its repeated refrain ‘At five in the afternoon’, which readers of the poem discover is the time of day that the young bullfighter dies.
Bacon was convinced that there ‘is an area of the nervous system to which the texture of paint communicates more violently than anything else’. His fascination with the physicality of our bodies and the unmoderated behaviour of animals were touchstones for his art.
Beginning with the hybrid creatures of the 1940s and animal studies of the 1950s, these interests ultimately found expression in his powerful paintings of the human form, which continue to resonate in new ways as generations pass.
[Royal Academy]
From the exhibition
Francis Bacon: Man and Beast
(January — April 2022)
Irish-born artist Francis Bacon was the horse-breeder’s son who became one of the most important painters of the 20th century.
An openly gay man at a time when homosexuality was illegal, he was banished from his conservative family home by his father at 16. After that, he drifted through Berlin and Paris before establishing himself in London, with his formative years running parallel with some of the 20th century’s most profoundly disturbing events.
This powerful exhibition will focus on Bacon’s unerring fascination with animals: how it both shaped his approach to the human body and distorted it; how, caught at the most extreme moments of existence, his figures are barely recognisable as either human or beast.
It also explores how Bacon was mesmerised by animal movement, observing animals in the wild during trips to South Africa; filling his studio with wildlife books, and constantly referring to Eadweard Muybridge’s 19th-century photographs of humans and animals in motion. Whether chimpanzees, bulls, dogs, or birds of prey, Bacon felt he could get closer to understanding the true nature of humankind by watching the uninhibited behaviour of animals.
Spanning Bacon’s 50-year career, highlights include some of Bacon’s earliest works and his last-ever painting, alongside a trio of bullfight paintings which will be exhibited together for the first time.
[Royal Academy]