Talking in Circles [37] Portrait of George Dyer Talking, 1966. Deleuze on Bacon, Painting Series

by Corry Shores
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alexalienart.com; forbes.com; thecityreview.com. Credits given at the end.]

[The following is quotation. My commentary is bracketed in red.]

Talking in Circles

(Thanks alexalienart.com)

Francis Bacon

Portrait of George Dyer Talking, 1966

Private Collection, New York

Painting 4 of Deleuze's

Francis Bacon: Logique de la sensation. Tome II - Peintures

Painting [37] of the English translation

and Painting [30] of the Seuil 2002 French

(Thanks thecityreview.com)

A round area often delimits the place where the person - that is to say, the Figure - is seated, lying down, doubled over, or in some other position. This round or oval area takes up more or less space : it can extend beyond the edges of the painting [64, 37] or occupy the center of a triptych [60, 61] (Deleuze 2003: 1bc)

Un rond délimite souvent le lieu où est assis le personnage, c'est-à-dire la Figure. Assis, couché, penché ou autre chose. Ce rond, ou cet ovale, tient plus ou moins de place : il peut déborder les côtés du tableau, être au centre d'un triptyque, etc. [22, 30]. (Deleuze 2002: 13-14)

(Thanks forbes.com)

[The figures in Bacon's paintings are often isolated and enclosed. On the one hand, this separates the figure from its surrounding field. But on the other hand, the enclosures seem to squeeze the figure, making it tend outward into the more open space. The figures are found in either circles or parallelepipeds. This painting is an example of a circular enclosure that extends beyond the painting's borders.]

(Thanks alexalienart.com)

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:

http://www.forbes.com/2000/11/29/1129lifestyle.html

http://www.alexalienart.com/Bacon%20News%20Archive.html

http://www.thecityreview.com/f00cpwar1.html