Page 65 - Studio International - March 1972

pictures-i.e. 'the first interesting thing... is its The rate of change, in spite of the artist's manifest. Russell quotes Leiris as an apology
shape : eighteen by seventy-two inches. Stanley awareness of other conventions (Russell is for Bacon's left hand (sinister)/right hand
was beginning to find lavatory rolls a great aid convincing about this, but makes a direct attitude to beauty, but it seems to me that the
to composition'- we gain no precise idea of the analogy with only one non-figurative painter - synthesis of polarities can produce a conceptual
link between day-to-day events and their Newman), is organically conditioned, although richness which is a justification for serious 1
pictorial forms. Why did these take a particular, the rate of production is aligned with the need attention. Notions about a bit of sand fouling
a peculiar, shape ? to fulfil the demands of exhibiting. There is a up an ideal order, and thus performing the
Louise Collis's introduction refers to a risk of self-centredness, primitivism and role of original sin, have a distinctly
multi-million word apologia by Spencer. I stylistic obsession, but Russell demonstrates a nineteenth-century ring. Bacon claims beauty
await the publication of this -agog ! q development in the work. (It is other-directed for his raw meat, but far too much attention has
CONAL SHIELDS art which is most likely to merely reflect shifts been paid to the 'subject matter' in my view.
in promoted taste.) The problem of such an The anecdotal elements-arm-bands, syringes
Bed or dais artist's relationship with the prevailing and razors, with the rest of the Grand Guignol
Francis Bacon by John Russell. Thames and convention recalls that of William Blake, as trappings-have a curious way of slipping out
Hudson. £4.95. I suggested, although in no sense is Bacon of one's consciousness when one encounters the
Bacon, Grand Palais, Paris. Catalogue with motivated by a social concern. His use of paintings, along with the vulgar frames in
introduction by Michel Leiris (distributed by photography is, I believe, very like that to which they are so frequently placed. When they.
Idea Books). £2.00. which Blake put engravings after the Masters. do not, the charge of sentimentality may be
In both cases the source material is already brought. But clearly an art which has the power
Painting in Britain since the war has been accepted in the canon of available images, but to change our visual frame will be found
mainly a matter of diluted conventions, first is primarily a tool of imagination and only elsewhere than in the 'mainstream' which is as
from Paris, then from New York. Bacon, like incidentally an aid to technical assurance. much a vehicle for mediocrity as is an ignorance
William Blake, was faced with inventing a Russell treats the relationship of Bacon's art of it. Bacon's art has done this.
convention for himself with the risk of mere to his source material, and especially DEREK SOUTHALL
eccentricity that is a concomitant of 'genius'. photography, very fully. He reveals the
Until recently there seemed, as with the earlier singularity of Bacon's use of it by reference to a
painter, to be a prophetic quality in his work. very large number of examples from other
John Russell, in his previous smaller artists. He deals with such sources of his art as
monograph, published by Methuen in 1964, the large rooms which were a feature of an
treated it in this way. My impression of the new extraordinarily wilful upbringing. Bacon's
book is that it represents a concordance of background and life-style, and the effect they
feeling with the work which causes him to see it have had upon the ethos of an existential
now as an epitome of our time. The book is the outlook, and the relationships in turn between
record of a twenty-year journey with one man's these things and the kind of moves Bacon has
paintings, with essays on related matters en made are revealingly explained.
route. Bacon's work is seen in the context of an I suggested above that Russell's use of
interest in other modes, and the consequent language is elegant; it is also capable of
referential scope is extremely wide; yet, in evoking something crucial to Bacon's method.
spite of a manifest erudition, the touch is light. He has, for example, the dog (Man with Dog,
We are accustomed to art which has as its 1953), 'skirling along the gutter', recalling not
primary raison d'être the achievement of a only its gait but a correspondence with the
single deliberately circumscribed objective and activity of the paint. A justification for Bacon's
thus a place in a movement; so Bacon's use of personages and objects is that there is a
self-willed prodigality can seem shocking. total concordance between the artist, his model Derek Southall, the painter, recently exhibited
He has consistently worked at the limits of his and the paint. But it is a sensational response to at the Institute of Contemporary Arts....
powers, and attempts a level of complexity phenomena, not the feeling based one of the Michael Kitson organized the exhibition of
that courts the chaos and sentimentality which technically similar Expressionist painter. In English Romantic Art currently at the Petit
attend failure. The Grand Manner orientation Bacon's case, unlike that of a Palais, Paris.... Malcolm MacEwan is
of subjects in which a bed or dais serves as a sensation-responsive artist like Matisse for Director of Public Affairs at the Royal
pedestal-but for flayed flesh; the bravura example, and in spite of-perhaps because of Institute of British Architects.... Liam de
handling of bodies in an increasingly decorous -his involvement with pigment, one feels that Paor is an archaeologist and a lecturer in
environment; the centrality of specifically he is somewhere between one and the painting. modern history at University College, Dublin.
human events and an essentially decorative Yet he seems to find masks necessary. There is His most recent book is the Penguin Special
mode; these and other polarities are a kind of dandyism in his stance. Shadows Divided Ulster. . . . Anita Brookner is a
discernible throughout two decades. The take on, in his work, autonomous existence; lecturer at the Courtauld Institute of Art. Her
notions of risk and accident associated with especially in the later paintings they become ( ?) book The Genius of the Future, discussed
him are puerile if they mean dependence on those curious ovoids which invade a face or French art criticism.... A.R.L.Higgens is a
hopeful wristwork. Russell makes a case for neck, and serve as a further mask upon the mask film-maker and a lecturer at St Martins School
the triptychs, but in my view they get around of paint. Bacon is much amazed by shadows. of Art.... Tore Hakansson is a Swedish
this kind of risk by the introduction of a They can behave like the ominous oval in behavioural anthropologist who has travelled
time-conditioned narrative, since a single Munch's painting of a pubescent girl, or recall extensively in the Caribbean and Africa....
painting can uniquely present an amalgam of that 'mystical' affinity between circles favoured Barbara Reise is a contributing editor to
states simultaneously. by Paul Nash. Studio International.... Conal Shields is head
In a valuable insight, Russell shows that Bacon began his career in decor, and his of the department of Art History at Camberwell
Bacon's self-directedness predicates a pace subsequent development reveals an uneasy College of Art....Ian Breakwell, the artist,
specific to himself, and this may result in dialectic between his capacity to charm, and an will be showing at the Angela Flowers Gallery
phases or pieces that he does not 'bring off'. almost desperate need to make sensations next month.

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