2023-08-13 04:11:13
dear friend,
Awaiting your reply. I believe it may be delayed due to rush. I will not stop it because you are the only friend I have to write to.
This letter suggests only a few things that we both can share in common from Michele Archimbeau’s conversation with Francis Bacon. It is also appropriate to say that they are taken from the current events on different topics. Francis Bacon was born in Ireland. British father. Australian mother. A childhood spent alternating between Ireland and London. I wanted to be a painter since my childhood. Dad was surprised at how strange it felt. Parents were not interested in going along with this wish. At that time there was no agreement in Ireland requiring parents to support their children financially. From the time she turned sixteen, her mother gave her three pounds each. That money would have been enough to live in that environment. Even then, there was no certainty that he would devote his life to painting. Traveled from Ireland to London and Berlin as a teenager. Stayed in Paris for a few days. Returned to London. At that time the decorations were done. Worked as a cook. It was during that period that an exhibition of Picasso was seen. After seeing that exhibition, Francis Bacon decided to make a living as a painter. Financial support was essential in escaping the boredom of the jobs he was doing then and becoming a full-time painter. A man named Eric Hall provided financial support for fifteen years.
Francis Bacon, January 1984. Photo: Ulf Andersen/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images.
Francis Bacon never studied painting. Bacon says you see. The method of knowing by sight. Other famous painters saw it as a tradition to copy the works of their ancestors. Bacon did not take that route and had little sympathy for formal academic traditions.
Bacon on Picasso: “I am his admirer. I am deeply touched by him. Picasso is the greatest genius of this century. Like a sponge Picasso absorbs everything. By influence I mean this phenomenon”. It was from this experience that Bacon became able to pull off anything later.
Bacon does not hesitate to accept, criticize, and reject Picasso. Cubist paintings are derided as ‘decorative’. I don’t like ‘Guernica’ either. People may be talking hysterically about that painting, but Bacon is not under any pressure of will. Bacon did not consider it Picasso’s best work, aside from its importance as a historical event. Picasso’s best works are believed to have been produced between 1926 and 1932.
I think you might be a little curious to know how Bacon sees those we call masters.
Rembrandt: Self-portraits at the end of life are impossible
Van Gogh: Immense! No similarities
Andy Warhol: A brilliant man. Undeniably. (Bacon met Andy Warhol in New York. Bacon was convinced that he had something to gain from Pop Art. Warhol’s films were not very fond of him.)
Now let’s write about some friendships. Let us first say that it is about Giacomoetti and Lucian Freud, who are both dear to us. Giacometti came to London to attend an exhibition. Giacometti’s hotel was near where Francis Bacon lived. The two men talked non-stop throughout the night they met. At that time, a friend of Bacon’s also arrived. Giacomotti, amazed by his good looks, invited the man to France. Noticing Giacometti’s interest in his portrait, Bacon encouraged his friend to do so, but it did not happen. The obstacle was the language problem between the two. Giacomati knew not a word of English but French. English is the only language the friend knows!
Swiss sculptor and painter Alberto Giacometti, Photo Credit: Gordon Parks/Getty Images
Francis Bacon preferred pencil and charcoal portraits to Giacomotti’s sculptures. “Somehow people forget to appreciate it. I don’t like Giacometti’s surrealist sculptures or the problematic ones. Picasso’s are more important than many of Giacometti’s sculptures. If I had to choose, it would be the drawings.” This is how Bacon ends his account of their relationship.
Let’s assume that it is not bad to start talking about Lucian Freud with the title of Sigmund Freud’s grandson. Here’s what Bacon had to say about Lucian Freud: “I love Lucian Freud’s portraits. We were good friends. We’ll never meet again. I know it’s sad, but that’s how it is. Today we don’t have the old intimacy. I have a portrait done. It’s a small picture. Someone took it at an exhibition in Germany. Stolen.”
Hearing this, the questioner, Michel, is surprised and asks, your portrait in someone else’s house! That is the consequence of fame! Bacon replies amusingly, so to speak. The fame of any of us! who knows!
I am sure you must have thought about the warmth of friendship slowly drying out. Hear what Francis Bacon had to say about that situation: The older you get, the fewer people you meet. You will be interested in very few people. Making new friends at this age is very difficult. “Many of my friends are dead. I am unlucky in that regard.”
Portrait of Francis Bacon by Lucian Freud, Image Credit:
There is a lonely man in Bacon. He was not interested in seeing a single person when he was busy with work. That’s why the bell in the studio was out of order. Wondering how Bacon arranged his work hours? Will wake up early in the morning. Worked until eleven, sometimes until noon. Then walk around. Going to the pub with friends. Those who come to see will see there. There are people like him in these bars. Eating, drinking and sharing love with them. They are not friends but acquaintances. Do not work drunk.
If we were to make a list of Francis Bacon’s favorite film directors and writers, it would look like this:
Eisenstein: Cinema is a great art. I was influenced by Battleship Potemkin. The boy’s fall down the Odessa stairs is a shocking scene.
Godard: Original director. Naturalism and intelligence.
Shakespeare: Mother tongue is English. I read French writers but always come back to Shakespeare.
Proust: Read in English. His brilliance in analyzing human nature, especially jealousy, is astonishing.
Michelle asks about the photographs she saw in Bacon’s studio. Bacon’s only interest in photographs is that they are documents. When Michele asks if you use photography in your work, you don’t. He replies that he knows people think that and it’s not true. He explains that people believe he constantly does so because he was one of the first to admit to using photographs in paintings. It’s not like a model. A photograph is basically a means of depicting something. Now look at this studio of mine and he elaborates on it by saying, “Look, photographs are scattered on the floor, all damaged. It’s easy for me to work with these documents. These photographs are helpful for certain textures, certain details. I use them as a tool.”
Painting by Francis Bacon, Francis Bacon, Study for Bullfight No. 1, 1969 The Estate of Francis Bacon. All rights reserved, DACS/Artimage 2021. Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd
Francis Bacon could write a short list of his dislikes.
● I don’t like Salvador Dali. Don’t like surreal paintings either.
● Don’t like Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. Simply put, it’s boring. It’s even more boring because it’s so famous.
● Abstracts are an easy way. I have never been satisfied.
● Dislikes landscapes in general.
Francis Bacon’s reluctance to talk about his own writings is evident in this conversation. It is surprising that not a single word of self-satisfaction has been uttered except to say that his favorite color is orange and that the comfort of sitting and working in his own studio cannot be found anywhere else. This question and answer is proof of that.
Q: How would you define yourself?
Answer: Anything I don’t like.
It is doubtful how many people would accept a Francis Bacon painting in which body, flesh and colors mingle. There is no simplicity in sight. Bacon’s paintings have been written by many as violent. Some have compared the writer Proust to Bacon. Chief among the similarities between Proust’s and Bacon’s writing worlds is that both rejected narrative abstraction altogether. Not only that, Proust’s phrase ‘truths written with the aid of the body’ can be attached to Bacon’s paintings.
Michel met Francis Bacon for the first time in 1987. They spoke to each other in French. This conversation was recorded between October 1991 and April 1992. In the studio, on the street, in a bar, the background for these stories was different. He rarely used English in conversation. Francis Bacon died on April 28, 1992 in Madrid.
A large part of the missing part in this book will be filled by your reading. Hope you do it soon.
lovingly
UiR
Content Highlights: Francis Bacon paintings | Francis Bacon art | Francis Bacon interests | Francis Bacon passions | Unni R book column | Book Bum Column
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