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[The following is quotation. My commentary is bracketed in red.]
Bare Arm Chairs
(Thanks
Editions de la différence and the Estate of Francis Bacon)
Francis Bacon
Triptych, Three Studies for a Portrait of Lucian Freud, 1966
Painting 25 of Deleuze's
Francis Bacon: Logique de la sensation. Tome II - Peintures
Painting [38] of the English translation
and Painting [25] of the Seuil 2002 French
There are other techniques of isolation: putting the Figure inside a cube, or rather, inside a parallelepiped of glass or ice [6, 55]; sticking it onto a rail or a stretch-out bar, as if on the magnetic arc of an infinite circle [62]; or combining all these means - the round area, the cube, and the bar - as in Bacon's strangely flared and curved armchairs [38]. (Deleuze 2003: 1d)Il y a d'autres procédés d'isolation : mettre la Figure dans un cube, ou plutôt dans un parallélépipède de verre ou de glace [29, 19] ; la coller sur un rail, sur une barre étirée, comme sur l'arc magnétique d'un cercle infini [3] ; combiner tous ces moyens, le rond, le cube et la barre, comme dans ces étranges fauteuils évasés et arqués de Bacon [25]. (Deleuze 2002: 11b.d)
Many large contours, for example, are treated as rugs (Man and Child, 1963 [32]; Three Studies for a Portrait of Lucian Freud, 1966 [38]; Portrait of George Dyer Staring into a Mirror, 1967 [45]), and seem to constitute a decorative regime of color. (Deleuze 2003: 106b)et par exemple beaucoup de grands contours seront traités comme des tapis ( « Homme et Enfant » 1963, «Trois études pour un portrait de Lucian Freud » 1966,«Portrait de George Dyer dans un miroir » 1968, etc.). On dirait un régime décoratif de la couleur. (Deleuze 2002: 142cd)
[Bacon's figures are isolated from each other. Often times he envelops them each in their own shape. Its contour confines the figure. We saw in other cases where the figure was isolated by a round area,
a box,
or by means of an extended rail.
In the case of this painting, we see that the deformed armchairs are a mix between a box and round area, with the carpet outline serving like a rail that the chairs are pinned-to.
(Again, thanks
Editions de la différence and the Estate of Francis Bacon)
(Again, thanks
Editions de la différence and the Estate of Francis Bacon)
The chairs isolate the figures. They seem so independent from each other that it no story could explain the relations between them. Yet they are also connected by visual proximity and by the carpet which seems to bring them into the same room, even though we sense an enormous distance between them. The carpet then is an all encompassing field, a 'decorative regime of color' that forces the figures together while at the same time imposing an infinite distance between them. We feel forced to bring them together as we experience them, and yet we have no narrative or representative means to do so. This causes us to experience the figures purely through intense sensation.]
But sometimes the opposition is completely different and surprising: it is the opposition of the naked and the clothed which we find on the right and left panels of a 1970 triptych [60], but which we had also found on the right and left panels of the 1968 triptych [53] in the two visible attendants. More subtly, in the 1966 triptych of Lucian Freud [38], the exposed shoulder with the contracted head, on the left, is opposed to the covered shoulder with the relaxed and sunken head, on the right. (Deleuze 2003: 56b)Mais il arrive aussi que l'opposition soit tout autre et surprenante : c'est celle du nu et de l'habillé qu'on trouve à droite et à gauche d'un triptyque de 1970 [1], mais qu'on trouvait déjà à gauche et à droite du triptyque de 1968 [5], chez les deux témoins apparents ; et plus subtilement le triptyque de Lucian Freud de 1966 [25] oppose l'épaule découverte de gauche, avec contraction de la tête, et l'épaule recouverte de droite, avec détente ou affaissement de la tête. (Deleuze 2002: 76c)
[Bacon's figures are sometimes intertwined together on the canvass. But also even when they are on separate panels, we might feel forces contracting them together. Our eyes for example might be drawn at the same time to both, or from one to the other in rapid succession. We feel forced to bring them together, to superpose them, all while Bacon has made that an impossibility. It is like forcing together two magnets, north-to-north end. Their fields communicate their oppositional differences to one another. They overlap, contract together, yet do not synthesize. So there is no harmony. Yet each one makes the other shake. Hence there is a resonance of sorts, a resonance of difference.
In this triptych, we might feel compelled at some moment to contract together the figures in the left and right panels.
(Again, thanks
Editions de la différence and the Estate of Francis Bacon)
But then we encounter a resonating difference: the left figure's shoulder is bare, and the right one's is clothed.]
(Again, thanks
Editions de la différence and the Estate of Francis Bacon)
Note also above how the forces deforming each figure's head also seem to resonate on account of their differences.]
(Again, thanks
Editions de la différence and the Estate of Francis Bacon)
Deleuze, Gilles. Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation. Transl. Daniel W. Smith. London/New York: Continuum, 2003.
Deleuze, Gilles. Francis Bacon: Logique de la sensation. Paris: Seuil, 2002.
Deleuze, Gilles. Francis Bacon: Logique de la sensation. Tome II - Peintures. Paris: Editions de la différence [Littératures], 1981.
Images obtained gratefully from:
Deleuze, Gilles. Francis Bacon: Logique de la sensation. Tome II - Peintures. Paris: Editions de la différence [Littératures], 1981.
Head VI :
Triptych, Three Studies of Lucian Freud, 1969:
Deleuze, Gilles. Francis Bacon: Logique de la sensation. Tome II - Peintures. Paris: Editions de la différence [Littératures], 1981.
Triptych, Studies of the Human Body, 1970
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