Page 56 - Studio International - July August 1975

setting incorporates pictures within a violent The Taming of the Shrew. On a Lazarus; as Christ; as a sailor; and, it is
picture, at least six framed items being less dramatic level, all three painters seem said', as a gambler.
visible directly or in reflection, as well as to have found the demi-monde All three artists use images of the
a wall-hanging or curtain. The sitter is stimulating for their art, and their work famous derived from news photographs.
surrounded by appliances of various shares a quality of disillusion; while Where Sickert paints George V, Queen
kinds, the most memorable parallel with Sickert and Warhol are also linked Mary and Edward VIII, Bacon paints
Bacon being provided by the presence, (compare Sickert's Ennui with Warhol's from a photograph of the reigning
on the wood and metal structure beside soup can paintings) by a concern with Pope', and Warhol paints Princess
the chair, of a naked electric light bulb species of boredom. Their 'boring' use of Margaret and Jackie Kennedy. All three
level with his head. Not only is the paint is discussed below. paint famous collectors, and famous
sitter framed by a visual enclosure of All three artists were concerned from theatrical figures. Sickert's Miss Gwen
chair and massive mantelpiece in an early date with the sophisticated, Ffrangcon-Davies as Isabella of France ... ... .8
combination, but his image is further styled presentation of material. Before may be compared with Warhol's
pinned down by the exposed drawn grid they became painters, Sickert was an Liz as Cleopatra, and Bacon has painted
of squaring-up lines. Taken with the actor, Bacon an interior designer and a portrait of the diseuse Mlle Suzy
box-like enclosed space created by the Warhol an advertising artist. In that Solider", a pupil of Yvette Guilbert who
mirror, these make a not too distant, unusually obsessive projection of the was a cabaret artiste when Sickert
even if unintentional, parallel with the self which is common to all three, the painted so many music hall scenes.
curtains and boxes by which Bacon's photograph, both in itself and translated It was the art developments of the
seated figures are often enclosed. The into paintings, plays an important role. 196os which sharply revealed late
raw directness of paint application is a Its suggestive, frozen moments are an Sickert in a new and flattering light.
further obvious parallel that will be invaluable means to the projection of a Not only did the move away from
developed below. personality's changeability, a factor which gestural paint application reveal positive
While it cannot too strongly be in Sickert, Bacon and Warhol is qualities in the relatively flat, inert paint
stressed that no suggestion of a pronounced. There is the glaring, of his late works, but above all American
disturbing content such as one finds in tormented personality that comes across Pop art showed in these paintings
so many Bacon paintings could have been in images of a restless Bacon, and the remarkable qualities hitherto
intended by Sickert in this portrait, it is courteous, penetratingly intelligent unperceived. Although they do not
hardly surprising if any figure subject commentator on past and present art. mention American Pop art (two of them
in Sickert gives the spectator pause to Bacon also seems alternately ravaged by being written too early to have done so),
consider the possibility of uneasy decades of nervous trauma and these admiring descriptions of Sickert's
implications. For so many of his paintings magically youthful, untouched by time. late paintings sound remarkably like
are concerned with disillusion, downfall The polarity between Warhol the world- accounts of Warhol's work:
or death. This tendency, which his use of weary media-manipulator and Warhol the `. ... I believe that his great works are
photographs extends, links him with eternal innocent is a cliché. One of the the best of his late works ... Sickert
Bacon and Warhol. Writing of Sickert obvious precedents for personality change had the boldness to leave unexplained
and Bacon, Max Kozloff considered (in which photographs played a crucial and make no pretence of explaining
(see note 1) that 'a pathological accent ... role) is Duchamp5, an artist much those forms which did not explain
unites them both', and that the admired by Bacon and Warhol. But themselves to the camera's eye. The
brushwork of both leads back, 'through a Sickert presents a classic case, portraits simply reflect back at us a
curious elegance, into an indelible photographs of him being difficult to sensation of the sitters sitting there, a
horror that is precious partly because it is identify one with another in numerous sensation of their thereness. This is
also involuntary'. Where Sickert permutations. Essentially, he dramatises life as one would see it if one had no
painted on the theme of the Camden himself in them, as in his self-portraits feelings, no thought, no moral or
Town Murder, Bacon treats where he is seen not only palette in hand aesthetic prejudices ... .. Here is .. ...
crucifixion and torture, and Warhol but also with a blind fiddler; as an actor; empiricism ... ruthless ... . ...
(on whose life an attempt was made) the with an actress entering the Royal disenchanted ... ... . raw ... ... . absolute ...'10
electric chair, car crashes, food Academy; with the Bridge of Sighs; as `It was one of his big serious jokes to
poisoning, suicide and gangster
violence. Although more optimistic in
implication, the shrouded corpse of
Sickert's photo-based The Raising of
Lazarus anticipates as a motif both
Bacon's dead bandaged Christ' and the
corpse theme in too many of Warhol's
works to list. Marital disharmony is a
theme in Sickert, and in general if he
depicts two figures in a room he
establishes a psychological tension
between them that is extended in
Bacon's claustrophobic interior scenes.
The pronounced voyeurism implicit in
many such scenes by Bacon, in all the
human dramas in Warhol's work, and
explicitly in such works as Couch and
Flesh where, as in Bacon, sexual activity
is depicted being witnessed by a third
party, is anticipated in Sickert's
revelations of bedroom life (two figures
on a bed is a common subject for him,
too) and his representations of clothed
men watching naked women. The theatre
subjects Sickert chose to represent
(from photographs) included passages in
Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet and Othello
which preceded deaths, as well as the

An Expensive Half-Sovereign c. 193o
Oil on canvas, size unknown
Photograph courtesy of the Leicester Galleries

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