The Texture of Uncertainty [4] Figure Study I, 1945-46. Deleuze on Bacon, Painting Series.

by Corry Shores
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artnet.com

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

The Texture of Uncertainty

(Thanks nationalgalleries.org)

Francis Bacon

Figure Study I, 1945-46

Private Collection, Great Britain

Painting 8 of Deleuze's

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

Painting [4] of the English translation

and Painting [8] of the Seuil 2002 French

What fills the rest of the painting will be neither a landscape as the correlate of the Figure, nor a ground from which the form will emerge, nor a formless chiaroscuro, a thickness of color on which shadows would play, a texture on which variation would play. Yet we are moving ahead too quickly. For there are indeed, in Bacon's early works, landscape-Figures like the Van Gogh of 1957 [23]; there are extremely shaded textures, as in Figure in a Landscape (1945) [2] and Figure Study I (1945-6) [4] (Deleuze, 2003: 3bc)

Ce qui remplit le reste du tableau, ce ne sera pas un paysage comme corrélat de la figure, ni un fond dont surgirait la forme, ni un informel, clair-obscur, épaisseur de la couleur où se joueraient les ombres, texture où se jouerait la variation. Nous allons trop vite pourtant. Il y a bien, ou début de l'oeuvre, des Figures-paysages comme le Van Gogh de 1957 ; il y a des textures extrêmement nuancées, comme « Figure dans un Paysage » ou « Figure étude I », de 1945 (Deleuze, 2002: 13d)

[Normally in Bacon's paintings, there are figures seemingly pinned to a monochrome surrounding field lying at about the same depth as the figure.

Figure at a Washbasin

(Thanks artnet.com)

However, in this painting, there is the textured beam in the background that dominates what would be a blank field in his later works.]

However, Deleuze considers this blotchy region to be a precursor to Bacon's later involuntary free marks and asignifying traits.]

(Thanks nationalgalleries.org)

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.

Images obtained gratefully from:

Figure Study I, 1945-46 and the fragment

http://www.nationalgalleries.org/collection/online_etour/4:328/3820/1

© Estate of Francis Bacon 2004. All Rights Reserved, DACS

Figure at a Washbasin, 1976

http://www.artnet.com/artwork/425743887/111884/francis-bacon-figure-at-a-washbasin.html