Page 32 - Studio International - January 1972

suggestion came from : 'You know the great only contrast that was needed was with the
Cimabue Crucifixion? I always think of that as contortions of the thieves. Primitive Crucifixion
a worm crawling down the Cross ... ' The reliefs like the Bosnian example in the museum
comparison is illuminating. In Bacon's picture at Zadar show an elemental exemplification
the cross-panel, decorated in the same deep which is the germ of a new figurative process
crimson as the room, is mounted on a little (78). As the tradition developed not only the
plinth as if in a gallery. Like the shape of the form but the narrative of the Passion (79) was
Cimabue itself, it is a reminder that the seen as a continuous exemplification of bodily
geometry on which a figure is stretched in structure (8o). The history of Christian art is
crucifixion is a special kind of plane. It is the the story of how the reading of divine purpose has
plane on which the body registers its image; been transformed by stages into understanding
indeed it easily turns into the picture plane of human purpose and ultimately identified in
itself This subject-shape readily becomes a the purpose of the artist. Pursuing another
picture shape. The writhing, crawling worm-like theme one might begin with the primitive
movement which Bacon extracted, it seems Crucifixion relief from Villars-les-Moines now
incongruously, from the Cimabue (76), speaks in Fribourg, in which the cross-shape is built
of a passionate, agonized relationship of the into the structure of the whole image, and end
body with the plane against which it is recorded, with Mondrian. As Bacon has said, we are
and of the violent intensity in the figurative mood living in very primitive times once again.
which is Bacon's avowed objective in painting. The penetration of the body that shows the
In fact the association is not incongruous. bones, the radiographic principle that almost
The traditional form of the Crucifixion grew turns the figure in the first triptych to a carcass,
out of the exegetical writings of the Fathers; has itself a place in the prophecy that the
the object of representing it was to visualize Crucifixion image developed to fulfil. The
how prophecy came to be fulfilled. Moses, Psalm continues : ... they pierced my hands
raising the serpent in the wilderness, was held and feet. I may tell all my bones : they look and
to foretell the writhing on the Cross (just as his stare upon me ... ' But in the second picture (81)
arms raised in prayer before the victory over the what have bandages and splints to do with the
Amalekites anticipated the position of sublime mystery of the Crucifixion ? The
crucifixion). The fourth gospel explains the radiographic manual shows the bandages that
necessity not only of Cimabue's image but of Bacon paints to have a special purpose (82).
Francis Bacon's understanding of it (III, 14): They bind the patient's limbs in the position in
`And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the which they are to be recorded by X-rays. People
wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted are X-rayed so that they may eventually be
up'. Not even Bacon's worm is out of place. healed. There is in fact an odd analogy between
The great prophecy of the Crucifixion is Psalm this particular figurative process and the legend
XXII : 'But I am a worm and no man... I of the Cross. The Crucifixion was the eventual
am poured out like water and all my bones are healing of the mortality of man, which was
out of joint ... the assembly of the wicked have incurred when Adam sinned; that was the
enclosed me ' It is perfectly fulfilled in Angel's promise when Adam died and the
Bacon's Crucifixion of 1962. reason why The Triumph of the Cross faces
Bacon has stated firmly that his Crucifixions The Death of Adam at the apex of Piero della
have no religious significance. His background Francesca's frescoes at Arezzo.
is Protestant and he is a non-believer. The We may be sure that nothing of the kind was
distinction is superficial; he is a painter in the in Bacon's thoughts; it might be fanciful to
tradition of Christian Europe and there is no trace such associations in the medical
evidence that such a painter has any particular impedimenta that the mood of a Crucifixion
need of faith. He will instinctively unpack for brought to his mind, but for the profound
himself what he needs from the capsule of description of painting that he gave in the
tradition that he inherits. Bacon gave the following year. Now that the religious
triptych its title 'Because I thought of it as a possibilities have been cancelled, he said (I
mood of a Crucifixion. Without all the paintings summarize his words), and one can only buy a
that have been done in the past of the Crucifixion kind of immortality through the doctors,
I would not have been able to do it'. painting has become a game, which must be
All Crucifixions have a double meaning. The continually deepened, by which man distracts
assurance of the atonement, which the cult himself from mortality. Bacon has, in fact, a
developed to provide, was also an assurance of marvellous instinct for the desperate, modern
the legible unity of the extended body. The counterparts to the sustaining attitudes of the
Italian ivory panel of the fifth century in the past. Even the element of mortification and
British Museum (77), which shows the abasement in these pictures extends our ability
beginning of the subject, contrasts the to envisage ourselves. The terror of mortality
triumphantly legible structure with the is balanced by a faith in what figure-painting
shapeless hanging body of the betrayer. It can do for us. The grotesque dispositions of
ministers to an elementary awareness of the modern art surprisingly often turn out to be
body, which is already distinct from the serenely noble and enduring patterns of thought. q
integrated physique of antiquity. This contrast [Positioning in Radiography by K. C. Clark is
was not pursued; as the subject developed the published by Heinemann Medical Books.]

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