Page 31 - Studio International - January 1972

all the possible Pieta positions the apparently emotional, indeed affectionate, but the pictures possibility exists, in rudimentary form at least,
graceless one devised by Paris Bordone (35) ? probe uncomfortably towards a definition of in the tradition. Ribera's etching Studies of the
How did he come to care so little for plausibility this cherished and personal property, the head (64) is unknown to Bacon; an artist needs
as to deprive the left leg of the support of the realization of a man in painting. rather little information. He can deduce and
angel, without which it seems inexplicable ? The imaginative registration is itself the unpack for himself potentialities that are
Such considerations can have counted for subject that is depicted, and not in painting implicit and encapsulated in the compound
nothing against a value inherent in the pose only. To register in our imaginations La muse legacy of his tradition.
itself. The pose is remarkable in one respect—the endormie of Brancusi must lay her head down Bacon has spoken of life as violent and of a
clarity with which an emotionally crucial region against a plane (49). In Bacon's imagery there need to transfer it violently to the system of
is exposed. It is in fact the basic radiographic is a flattened sprawl that is as personal to him nervous awareness that art serves. There is
position for examining the hip joint and the as the elevated structure of parted legs is to undoubtedly an element akin to violence in the
femur (37). The plane in which they become Poussin (51,54). The figure registers itself figurative method that radiography has in
legible is horizontal; in radiography the plate against a mattress which is either a bed or a common with one tradition of painting. The
is placed under them and the X-rays are directed radiographer's couch or both. The clinical penetrating ray transfixes its subjects (65); they
vertically from above. In the pictures by Bordone setting for examination and portrayal is also are placed in readiness in the attitudes of the
and Poussin the pose is read imaginatively the erotic arena. The double meaning reflects a martyrs (66). The legends of the saints have
from the same viewpoint. In the Bordone it is fantasy about representation and the pose accumulated around the need and the ability
clearly outlined against a clinically bare plane descends from the most passionate dreams in to visualize them. To yield the totality of its
in the position of the radiographic plate. The art. It is the very pose which echoes like a structure to representation, the body must be
necessity in the Poussin for the indications of a languorous melody through Correggio's stretched and fixed (67) and the narrative
rock for Narcissus to lie on, like a vestigial Antiope, registering its shape against the bank subject matter provides that it shall be (68). The
Stone of Unction, becomes clear. Comparison where the figures lie among the emblems of body is spreadeagled and suspended for
with the positions of radiography (38) helps to consummated love, registering it for an eye that representation in martyrology and radiography
account for the significance of the delicate hovers enraptured above it (55). alike (69, 70). The incongruous similarity
awkwardness of Poussin (39), as against the The different phases of this dream in art between the tortures of figure-painting and
functional efficiency of Rubénisme, with its are also differing relationships between the the seductions spring from a constant
rhetorical content. The content of Poussin's body and the figurative equipment. Even figurative mood. The treatments to which the
figures is almost independent of their actions; within a single period there is a whole spectrum body is subjected have the basic object of
the spread positions of these reclining figures are of relationships. The fatal ladies of the fin de extracting a required order of image (71, 72).
in essence not unlike the splayed upright poses in siècle, like the one in Tenderness by Khnopff Bacon has described his intention in painting
which dancers are often painted in the (57), press confidentially against the planes as making a certain mood visual. This mood is
Bacchanals. The primary significance of a pose that hem them in, as the subject of a radiograph evidently, among other things, the elusive yet
in the art of Poussin is to isolate a specific often must to register inward anatomy on the vivid emotional coloration of figure-painting
awareness of the body. plate (58). Conversely, the skull in the hand of itself. It is worth considering whether the
In the art of Poussin's contemporaries, a the ascetic Magdalen of Puvis de Chavannes (59) affinities between a scientific method and a
converse meaning sometimes arises from an regards her with the coldness of the ray that the tradition of figure-painting have any bearing on
opposite standpoint to the same issue. radiographic tube directs upon the patient. the enigmatic centrepieces of his work, the
Comparison with the position of maximum Critics have been slower than Bacon himself Crucifixion triptychs. Apart from Three studies
legibility, which has been established to recognize his method as realistic. But there for figures at the base of a crucifixion 1944, with
experimentally for X-rays (40), indicates the are clinical analogies even to the apparent which his mature work began, there are up to
point at which clarity and comprehension are in fantasy of his inventions. The sides of meat the present two of these. In the first, painted in
the Venus by Velasquez glamorously hung symmetrically as an accompaniment to a 1962, the Crucifixion, within a railing of bones,
obscured (41). The Rokeby Venus, however, is figure (61), to which they may seem on the occupies the right hand panel (74), with
the picture of an optical projection. Although surface to supply an incongruity that is merely violence enthroned on a bed in the middle and a
the passage in the mirror no longer shows much macabre, in fact serve to emphasize an element relatively social, even urbane meeting of figures
of the painter's work, it still exemplifies a that is inseparable from a certain kind of image. on the left. Three years later, in the second
visual and physical aspect more than an Juxtapositions of opposite, complementary triptych, the Crucifixion panel was moved to
illustrative one. In paintings that are based on views of just such hidden structures are normal the centre (81). The intimate emotional
visual information rather than formal knowledge, in radiographic method (6o); the two aspects violence in the bedroom is on the left and public
reflected images become concentrated essences complete the required information. In painting violence, with political insignia, on the right.
of the whole. In some Dutch pictures of a lady at complementary views are sometimes reconciled From the right two figures watch like racegoers
a mirror, indeed in Vermeer's Dresden Letter in a single traditional image. The fullest tribute the central panel. In both triptychs, the
Reader (43), the projection of form is acted out that Ingres paid to the solidity of life was attendant figures are simply painted and easy
as if in a play. It is an illusion, a play within a delicately to press the roundness of a head flat to construe, while the violence and in particular
play. against the picture plane, with the tenderness the Crucifixion motifs are in a state of obscure
Perhaps the example of radiography and intact. metamorphosis.
some photographs which record a strange Radiography has developed the process into a The girdle of bones round the inverted
kinship between a patient and the radiographic scientific method. By means analogous to the figure in the first picture is the sign of at least a
plate beside him (42), as well as the painterly panoramic camera, the technique known as double meaning in the scene. It is as if some
tradition, for which Bacon's sympathy is rotography (there is also panagraphy) rotates articulated part of a skeleton were extracted
profound, have inspired his studies of the the patient and the film in opposite directions, for medical demonstration and the incongruity
relationship between a figure and its image (45). unwinding successive aspects in a continuous of scale is a further reflection of the kind of
In pictures like George Dyer staring into a band and peeling off an image of the superficial contrast common in the radiography
mirror 1967 (46) and Two studies for a portrait of anatomy like the bark from a tree (62). illustrations (75). The figure itself writhes head
George Dyer 1968 (47) he has brought into the Radiography is far advanced toward the down against the panel which fills the place of
open something implicit in toilet pictures and objective, which Bacon cherishes, of making a the cross. Discussing the picture in the year
studio pictures. The relationship is very landscape of the mouth (63). Even this after it was painted, Bacon explained where the
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