When I was about sixteen, Francis Bacon was my favourite artist and Thomas Hardy my favourite novelist. I recently returned to Hardy to find that he was a bit dreary, rather limited and highly contrived. Tonight's opening of the Francis Bacon retrospective at Tate Britain gives me the opportunity to reappraise Bacon as well in all his gory glory. I hope to god he won't let me down.
It's hard to describe Bacon's work without resort to the usual abstract nouns: horror, anguish, fear, alienation, darkness, desire, nihilism... No other artist prompts the use of the phrase 'the human condition' so frequently as Bacon. It's this unrelenting darkness that appeals to the tortured teenage mind, in the same way as, say, Jude the Obscure. But a life lived in misery is a tedious or a short one. Those now of my age (or, indeed, of the age) don't want this or, at least, don't want only this.
It is for this reason that I disagree with Adrian Searle's view that, over the years, Bacon became a parody of himself. Particularly instructive here is the presence in the exhibition of two of Bacon's most celebrated works: Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion, 1944, the work that effectively launched his career, and the artist's re-visitation of the work in 1988. The first is small, angry and direct: all good things, especially for Searle. There is a desperation and a violence about the three figures here, only emphasised by the flaming orange background and dry textural marks. With paint scumbled, scratched and scarified across the surface, this is a work that comes at you.
The version of 1988 is more stately, more theatrical, with the lush burgundy background of the final curtain suggesting something more staged, less 'real'. But art isn't real, or at least it doesn't have to be. That the figures are so dwarfed by their plush surroundings suggests that raw emotion is no longer the only driving force of Bacon's art. Searle regrets this; I give thanks.
The dark surroundings enact something else too. Bacon was quite categorical about the fact that all of his works should be exhibited behind glass, and in the triptych of 1988 (as in most of Bacon's mid- to late-career works) this means that you can see your own reflection in the painting. What does this do? Well, on one level it implicates you in the work: there is always your own reflection amid Bacon's mangled figures. But on another this double vision foregrounds the act of viewing the work of art. Art is there, on the wall, distant and aloof. I am here, in an art gallery, looking, standing next to people. (Tonight I'm between Duran Duran's Nick Rhodes and some pretty, plaid-clad art student, precocious as she explains it all to 'Mommy'.)
Francis Bacon, 'Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion', oil and pastel on hardboard, 1944
Whilst the early pieces seek to be only themselves, these later works allow space for a viewer. There is less anger in works such as the self-consciously literary Tripych inspired by the Oresteia of Aeschylus, 1981 or Study for portrait of Pope Innocent X, 1965. It's more subtle, more stagey, subversive rather than merely oppositional. There is camp amid the grandeur.
We see this archness progress throughout Tate's (largely chronological) exhibition as the violence and physicality of the early works blends with something slicker and more sophisticated. There's something squelchy about the flesh (in, for example, Triptych, August 1972) that contrasts with the planes of raw canvas and jet black doorways. I prefer the ostentatious authority and the variety of these later works: compared to these, the 'Screaming Popes', of which the Tate exhibits two, are a little too direct and one-dimensional.
Sticking to chronology is an obvious strategy for this kind of show, and a good one. But some of the rooms are grouped, instead, along thematic lines. This is a smart move. Placing all of the crucifixion scenes together, for example, produces a powerful effect, as Nietzschean atheism collides with ultimate in Christian iconography.
'Archive' though, is, I think, one of the most fascinating rooms in the show. Here, Tate offers us a glimpse into Bacon's life, his chaotic studio at Reece Mews, and the many elements that influenced his work. There's Muybridge's famous photographs of course, alongside portraits of George Dyer taken by John Deakin, a snap of Dyer and Bacon out in Soho in 1960, an image from a magazine depicting England against India in Calcutta (I think it's Dennis Amiss batting in 1977) and one particularly haunting photograph of the artist – his face closely cropped – by an unknown photographer from 1972.
The evidence here that – despite his protestations to the contrary – Bacon did indeed produce preparatory sketches and plans is, for the technically-minded at least, a revelation. It shows Bacon – as all his friends have testified – to be, not so much a liar or a parody as Searle has it, but something self-consciously constructed. This is something that becomes more apparent in the gaud and the glitz of the later works, and in some ways they're 'truer' for that. Bacon is today a big, grand figure in British art, out on his own in terms of pricing and stature. Tate Britain itself may be spoken of in similar tones. This is a majestic retrospective that commands attendance.
Francis Bacon is at Tate Britain until 04.01.09.
To get the most out of a visit to the Francis Bacon exhibition, click here to read Spoonfed's Francis Bacon Weekend Guide.
Or click here to read Dominick's review of Francis Bacon at Tate Britain.
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