“I want to nail down reality so that it can be returned onto the nervous system more violently”
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon, (born on 28 October 1909 and died on 28 April 1992) was an artist and interior designer from Ireland-Britain, his art known for focusing on the human body, abstracts, and geometric structures. Most of his work was capturing the action of brutality and violence, as he stated, “I want to nail down reality so that it can be returned onto the nervous system more violently”.
Bacon’s believed humans are fooling themselves trying to hide their inner violent side, he believed the truth is the opposite hence he wanted to bring out the reality to the world by unlocking those emotions through his arts. According to him, desperation, unhappiness, depression, and violence is the real source to stretch and feel the sensibility of the human mind and soul, and by applying his unique techniques, Bacon’s illustrated not only his beliefs but also his hidden secretive life and emotions.
From the violence and abuse he suffered from his family to the refusal he got about his true self from society, Bacon’s symbolized all of that through various preferable inspirations like wild animals and bullfighting books, as well as medical manuals and horrific images index from WWII.
Furry c.1944 Figure Study I 1945-46 Figure Study II 1945-46
These three artworks are great examples of how Bacon’s illustrated both his interior design background with his thoughts. Starting with the right art ‘ Fury ‘ which was done in 1944, Bacon has always been interested in ancient Greek mythology, hence it inspired him a lot in most of his works, and ‘fury’ was one of them, is reflecting the creature of vengeance appear in the Oresteia, which is an ancient greek trilogy by Aeschylus, besides, using both red-orange colors as a background and a box shape as a cage for the creature, was a smart move to deliver the rage, frustration, and disappointment he had for a long time.
Figure Study I and II (middle and left figure respectively), as a study for the ‘ Magdalene’ bacon stated that he wanted to illustrate the story by a hidden unseen body ‘ figure study 1 ‘ covered under a coat, a sad face laid above flowers, then in ‘ figure study 2 ‘ the body detached itself from it, holding a black umbrella showing the emotions that combine with grieving like sorrow and depression.
Again, bacon successfully engaged his experience in interior design by using a few elements like furniture pieces such as tables, alongside picked colors that show the hidden emotional psychology, such as red-orange which represents fury, black-grey which represents sadness, and colorful colors like blue and pink that represents hope. Bacon was definitely a master of creating order and art from chaos, and in each work was a challenge, an epic war between his thoughts, emotions, and reputation.