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29 Mar 2010
Deleuze Cinema Update: Miming Times of Destiny. Marcel Carné. Children of Paradise / Les Enfants du Paradis
by Corry Shores
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28 Mar 2010
Fate of the Wild [77] Francis Bacon: Seated Figure, 1974.Deleuze on Bacon, Painting Series
by Corry Shores
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[May I deeply thank the sources of these images:
Credits found at the end.]
[The following is quotation. My commentary is bracketed in red.]
Fate of the Wild
Francis Bacon: Seated Figure, 1974
Gilbert de Botton Collection
Painting 39 of Deleuze's Francis Bacon: Logique de la sensation. Tome II - Peintures
Painting [77] of the English translation, and
Painting [39] of the Seuil 2002 French
Man becomes animal, but not without the animal becoming spirit at the same time, the spirit of man, the physical spirit of man presented in the mirror as Eumenides or Fate [77]. (Deleuze 2003: 16ab)L'homme devient animal, mais il ne le devient pas sans que l'animal en même temps ne devienne esprit, esprit de l'homme, esprit physique de l'homme présenté dans le miroir comme Euménide ou Destin. [39] (Deleuze 2002: 28bc)
[The faces of Bacon's figures are often deformed as though pushed-and-pulled in many divergent directions at once. These deformations result from one of Bacon's techniques. He randomly messes-up the figure in unintentional ways, like spattering or smearing the paint. This creates new opportunities to unfold the figure's rendition. But because Bacon develops the work in more than one direction at once, the face is warped, stretched, and mutilated. There are many forces chaotically intertwined in the figure's body. We might say that there is a zone of wilderness, like a jungle of forces, inhabiting the wildly twisted body. The forces are not explicit, yet they are fully there, fully expressed in the body's contortions. They are implicit involved intensities rather than explicit evolved extensities. They flare-up-and-about like the tongues of a wild fire. This is the wild spirit inhabiting intensified bodies, making them more like animal meat than human flesh.
When we view Bacon's paintings, we are affected in such a way that our bodies feel the same affect. Our bodies become disorganized. Its many organs which want to function harmoniously and organically now operate divergently, able only to communicate to each other the differences they are feeling. In a sense, we became animal, because we embody a wilderness. Hence when our bodies and faces become animal, it is not that they take-on specific animal shapes. As Deleuze writes, "the marks or traits of animality are not animal forms, but rather the spirits that haunt the wiped off parts, that pull at the head, individualizing and qualifying the head without a face" (Deleuze 2003: 15-16). So, we embody the spirit of the wild, of the animal.
(Again, thanks Stampfli & Turci of eaobjets.wordpress.com and Palazzo Reale)
That man becomes animal in this way is a fact. But likewise in the same process, animal becomes man. Their inter-becoming, then, is a 'common-fact'. Perhaps as our bodies express their inner wilderness, we give a human embodiment to the animal spirits. When the figure here looks in the mirror, he does not see the image of his body. Rather, he sees its physical spirit. What we observe in the painting is an animal-like creature that is taking-on the form of a Fury or of Fate.
(And once more, I would like to thank Stampfli & Turci of eaobjets.wordpress.com and Palazzo Reale)
The animal spirits, in this way, cross-into a human domain where they come to express a human rendition of destiny. So consider when we are torn-about by wild animal forces. Our bodies then embody the animal spirits of wildness just as much as these spirits take-on human form and express the human in its rawest state or 'fact'. The common fact then is the dual state-of-affairs arising when the human expresses the animal all while the animal thereby expresses the human.]
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 quite gratefully from:
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 quite gratefully from:
Authors here say the image was provided courtesy of Palazzo Reale:
26 Mar 2010
Moving through Paralysis [36] Francis Bacon: After Muybridge - Woman Emptying a Bowl of Water & Paralytic Child 1965 Deleuze on Bacon, Painting Series
by Corry Shores
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[The following is quotation. My commentary is bracketed in red.]
Moving through Paralysis
Francis Bacon: After Muybridge - Woman Emptying a Bowl of Water and Paralytic Child, 1965
Staatsgalerie Moderner Kunst, Munich
Painting 34 of Deleuze's Francis Bacon: Logique de la sensation. Tome II - Peintures
Painting [36] of the English translation, and
Painting [34] of the Seuil 2002 French
The round area or the parallelepiped that isolates the Figure itself becomes a motor, and Bacon has not abandoned the project that a mobile sculpture could achieve more easily: in this case, the contour or pedestal would slide along the length of the armature so that the Figure could make its "daily round". [Footnote 15] [...] It is the stroll of the paralytic child and its mother clinging to the edge of the balustrade in a curious race for the handicapped [36]. (Deleuze 2003: bc; c)L'isolant de la Figure, le rond ou le parallélépipède, deviennent eux-mêmes moteurs, et Bacon ne renonce pas au projet qu'une sculpture mobile réaliserait plus facilement : qui le contour ou le socle puissent se déplacer le long de l'armature, de telle manière que la Figure fasse un « petit tout » quotidien [note 38]. [...] C'est la promenade de l'enfant paralytique et de sa mère, crochetés sur le bord de la balustrade, dans une curieuse course à handicap. [34] (Deleuze 2002: 44cd; d)
[Bacon's figures give us a sense of motion. But it is a motionless motion, in a way, because it is motion that does not extend through physical space. It is motion and change of a whole other sort of magnitude, intensive magnitudes. We often sense that Bacon's figures are being pushed-and-pulled in many directions at once, and are caught between them, frozen in an instantaneous spasm.
Deleuze's point with this work seems to be that these intensive forces that we sense give us sensations. Then from those sensations we might imagine actual movement take place in the work. So in this painting, let's look at the paralytic child walking the balustrade.
We might also note its resemblance to the figure in Bacon's Paralytic Child Walking on All Fours (from Muybridge), 1961.
Bacon seems to have modeled this figure from these Muybridge images.
Below universoweb.com places the figures side-by-side.
(Thanks very much universoweb.com)
What Deleuze seems to be saying is this: it is not that we see different phases of movement through extensive space, which would then give us different levels of sensation. Rather, we sense inner tendencies in the figures. Forces push-and-pull the figures in many directions at once, suggesting different speeds, but actualizing none in extensive time and space. These tendencies in Bacon's paintings are not a snapshot of a single picture for where the figure wants to go and at what speed. Rather, on account of his scrambling techniques, we sense changes in the tendencies. These unpredictable changes of intensity cause us to feel different levels or valencies of sensation. We then secondarily translate these intensive changes as suggesting real movements in the figures. So it is not the motions that cause the sensations, but the sensations that cause the motions.
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.
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 gratefully obtained from:
Deleuze, Gilles. Francis Bacon: Logique de la sensation. Tome II - Peintures. Paris: Editions de la différence [Littératures], 1981.
25 Mar 2010
Deleuze Cinema Update: Enchained to Time. Marcel Carné. The Devil's Envoys / Les Visiteurs du soir
by Corry Shores
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22 Mar 2010
Pinned to Black [44] Francis Bacon: Three Studies of the Human Body, 1967. Deleuze on Bacon, Painting Series
by Corry Shores
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[The following is quotation. My commentary is bracketed in red.]
Pinned to Black
Francis Bacon: Three Studies of the Human Body, 1967
Private Collection
Painting 24 of Deleuze's Francis Bacon: Logique de la sensation. Tome II - Peintures
Painting [44] of the English translation, and
Painting [24] of the Seuil 2002 French
It often seems that the flat fields of color curl around the Figure, together constituting a shallow depth, forming a hollow volume, determining a curve, an isolating track or ring [...]. This kind of situation finds its equivalent only in theater [...] or else it is found in visions of bodies plunging in a black tunnel. But if these fields of color press toward the Figure, the Figure in turn presses outward, trying to pass and dissolve through the fields. Already we have here the role of the spasm, or of the scream: the entire body trying to escape, to flow out of itself. (Deleuze 2003: xiii b)
[We find Bacon's figures often immersed in a same-colored field. In this case, it is black. The field presses-in on the bodily figures. Their insides want to escape. In any instant, the bodies express the forces wrestling within them, producing an instantaneous spasm or scream.]
[The armature] can consist in the action of a very particular section of the field that we have not yet considered: the field occasionally includes a black section, sometimes quite localized (Pope No. II, 1960 [27]; Three studies for a Crucifixion, 1962 [29];Portrait of George Dyer Staring into a Mirror, 1967 [45]; Triptych, 1972 [70];Portrait of a Man Walking down Steps, 1972 [68]), sometimes even flowing (Triptych, 1973 [73]), and sometimes total or constituting the entire field (Three Studies from the Human Body, 1967 [44]). (Deleuze 2003: 104c)[l'armature peut] consister dans l'action d'une section très particulière de l'aplat que nous n'avons pas encore considérée : en effet, il arrive que l'aplat comporte une section noire, tantôt bien localisée (« Pape n° 2 » 1960 [45], « Trios études pour une crucifixion » 1962, « Portrait de George Dyer regardant fixement dans une miroir» 1967, « Triptyque » 1972, « Homme descendant l'escalier » 1972), tantôt même débordante (« Triptyque » 1973), tantôt totale ou constituant tout l'aplat (« Trois études d'après le corps human » 1967). (Deleuze 2002: 140c.d)
[Sculptures may have a support structure called an armature. According to Deleuze, there is often something in Bacon's paintings that holds-up the figures in a similar way. They often seem suspended midair in a monochromatic field. In this case, the field is black. It is as though the bottom figures are fixed to this field as if it were an armature of some sort.]
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. 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:
21 Mar 2010
Potty-Mouth Translations [73] Francis Bacon: Triptych, 1973. Deleuze on Bacon, Painting Series
by Corry Shores
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[May I thank the sources of these images:
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Credits found at the end.]
[The following is quotation. My commentary is bracketed in red.]
Potty-Mouth Translations
Francis Bacon: Triptych, 1973
Saul Sternberg Collection, New York
Painting 29 of Deleuze's Francis Bacon: Logique de la sensation. Tome II - Peintures
Painting [73] of the English translation, and
Painting [6] of the Seuil 2002 French
The entire series of spasms in Bacon is of this type: scenes of love, of vomiting and excreting [73], in which the body attempts to escape from itself through one of its organs in order to rejoin the field or material structure. (Deleuze 2003: 12ab)Toute la série des spasmes chez Bacon est de ce type, amour, vomissement, excrément, toujours le corps qui tente de s'échapper par un de ses organes, pour rejoindre l'aplat, la structure matérielle [6]. (Deleuze 2002: 24a)
[Bacon's figures are often constrained by some enclosure. It applies pressure to the figure. Imagine squeezing a water-balloon. The water is forced outward and might escape through a break in the surface. In these paintings, the figure's insides escape through their bodily openings.]
Sometimes an animal, for example a real dog, is treated as the shadow of its master [52], or conversely, the man's shadow itself assumes an autonomous and indeterminate animal existence [73] (Deleuze 2003: 16a)Il arrive qu'un animal, par exemple un chien réel, soit traité comme l'ombre de son maître [32]; ou inversement que l'ombre de l'homme prenne une existence animale autonome et indéterminée [6]. (Deleuze 2002: 28a)
[These forces acting on the figures' bodies cause them to deform and take on animal traits. In this case, the shadow escapes from the body in an animal-like form. Perhaps this shadow reminds us of a bat.]
But in the end, it is a movement "in place," a spasm, which reveals a completely different problem characteristic of Bacon: the action of invisible forces on the body (hence the bodily deformation, which are due to this more profound cause). In the 1973 triptych [73], the movement of translation occurs between two spasms, between the two movements of a contraction in one place. (Deleuze 2003: 30a)Mais à la limite, c'est un mouvement sur place, un spasme, qui témoigne d'un tout autre problème propre à Bacon : l'action sur le corps de forces invisibles (d'où les déformations du corps qui sont dues à cette cause plus profonde). Dans le triptyque de 1973, le mouvement de translation est entre deux spasmes, entre deux mouvements de contraction sur place. (Deleuze 2002: 45c).The horizontal can also be executed in a movement of translation, as in the 1973 triptych [73]: a horizontal translation in the center panel makes us move from the spasm on the right to the spasm on the left (here again we see that the order of succession, when there is one, does not necessarily go from left to right). (Deleuze 2003: 54c)L'horizontale peut aussi être effectuée suivant un mouvement de translation, comme dans le triptyque de 1973 : une translation horizontale, au centre, nous fait passer du spasme de droite au spasme de gauche (là encore on voit que l'ordre de succession, quand il y en a un, ne va pas nécessairement de gauche à droite). (Deleuze 2002: 75bc)The rising-descending, contraction-dilation, and systolic-diastolic oppositions cannot be identified with each other. A discharge, for example, is indeed a descent, as well as a dilation and expansion, but there is also a contraction in the discharge, as in the man at the washbasin [80] and the man on the toilet in the 1973 triptych [73]. (Deleuze 2003: 57a)En effet, on ne peut pas identifier montée-descente et contraction-dilation, systole-diastole : par exemple l'écoulement est bien une descente, et aussi une dilation et expansion, mais il y a de la contraction dans l'écoulement, comme chez l'homme au lavabo et l'homme au bidet du tri triptyque de 1973. (Deleuze 2002: 77bc)
[The forces acting upon the figures cause them to spasm. But these spasms are not vibrations that happen over an extent of time. Rather, they are wrestling forces that push-and-pull the figure in many directions at once, simultaneously and instantaneously.
Composer Messiaen described what he called rhythmic characters. The active one acts upon the passive one, all while an attending observer witnesses the drama. (See the Messiaen section of this entry for more on rhythmic characters, and for even more detail, see this entry). Deleuze relates the attendant figure to horizontal forces in Bacon's paintings. In this case, we feel a movement from the right panel to the left, crossing horizontally through the center one.
(Again, thanks Editions de la différence and the Estate of Francis Bacon)
Deleuze also classifies different force-oppositions in Bacon's works. We cannot reduce one to the other, but they may still coincide in the same figures, contracted together, but not dissolved into one. In this case, the door frames contract-upon the figures, and this contracting pressure is met with its opposing force, dilation: the bodies try to expand and escape through some bodily opening. As well, this expansion involves a descending force, as the figures' insides are shot downward.]
[The armature] can consist in the action of a very particular section of the field that we have not yet considered: the field occasionally includes a black section, sometimes quite localized (Pope No. II, 1960 [27]; Three studies for a Crucifixion, 1962 [29];Portrait of George Dyer Staring into a Mirror, 1967 [45]; Triptych, 1972 [70]; Portrait of a Man Walking down Steps, 1972 [68]), sometimes even flowing (Triptych, 1973 [73]), and sometimes total or constituting the entire field (Three Studies from the Human Body, 1967 [44]). (Deleuze 2003: 104c)[l'armature peut] consister dans l'action d'une section très particulière de l'aplat que nous n'avons pas encore considérée : en effet, il arrive que l'aplat comporte une section noire, tantôt bien localisée (« Pape n° 2 » 1960 [45], « Trios études pour une crucifixion » 1962, « Portrait de George Dyer regardant fixement dans une miroir» 1967, « Triptyque » 1972, « Homme descendant l'escalier » 1972), tantôt même débordante (« Triptyque » 1973), tantôt totale ou constituant tout l'aplat (« Trois études d'après le corps human » 1967). (Deleuze 2002: 140c.d)
[Bacon's figures appear pinned-up to a flat background. They seemingly hover in their place, as though supported by something like an armature of a sculpture. Deleuze says that one sort of armature in Bacon's works is a black square. In this case, the square is flowing out from its linear bounds.]
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 quite gratefully from:
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 quite gratefully from:
Deleuze, Gilles. Francis Bacon: Logique de la sensation. Tome II - Peintures. Paris: Editions de la différence [Littératures], 1981.
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