Bacon’s Man with Dog, 1953, in Deleuze’s Francis Bacon commentary

 

by Corry Shores

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[Entry collecting the images of the paintings in this text.]

[I am profoundly grateful to the source of this image:

https://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/bacon/

Credits given at the end.]

 

[The following is quotation. My commentary is in brackets. Proofreading is incomplete, so please excuse my typos.]

 

 

Francis Bacon

 

Man with Dog, 1953

 

(www.ibiblio.org / webmuseum)

 

 

Painting 16 of Deleuze’s
Francis Bacon: Logique de la sensation. Tome II - Peintures
Painting [15] of the English translation
and Painting [16] of the Seuil 2002 French

 

 

From the text:

Il distingue dans sa peinture trois éléments fondamentaux, qui sont la structure matérielle, le rond-contour, l’image dressée. Si l’on pense en termes de sculpture, il faut dire : l’armature, le socle qui pourrait être mobile, la Figure qui se promène dans l’armature avec le socle. S’il fallait les illustrer (et il le faut à certains égards, comme dans « L’Homme au chien » de 1953), on dirait : un trottoir, || des flaques, des personnages qui sortent des flaques et font leur « tour quotidien »⁵.

(Deleuze 1981a: 11c; 2002: 14||15)

5. Nous citons dès maintenant le texte complet, E. II, p. 34-36: « En pensant à elles comme sculptures, la manière dont je pourrais les faire en peinture, et les faire beaucoup mieux en peinture, m’est venue soudain à l’esprit. Ce serait une sorte de peinture structurée dans laquelle les images surgiraient, pour ainsi dire, d’un fleuve de chair. Cette idée rend un son terriblement romantique, mais je vois cela de façon très formelle. – Et quelle forme est-ce que cela aurait ? – Elles se dresseraient certainement sur des structures matérielles. – Plusieurs figures ? – Oui, et il y aurait sans doute un trottoir qui s’élèverait plus haut que dans la réalité, et sur lequel elles pourraient se mouvoir, comme si c’était de flaques de chair que s’élevaient les images, si possible, de gens déterminés faisant leur tour quotidien. J’espère être capable de faire des figures surgissant de leur propre chair avec leurs chapeaux melon et leurs parapluies, et d’en faire des figures aussi poignantes qu’une Crucifixion. » Et en E. II, p. 83, Bacon ajoute : « J’ai songé à des sculptures posées sur une sorte d’armature, une très grande armature faite de manière à ce que la sculpture puisse glisser dessus, et à ce que les gens puissent même à leur gré changer de position de la sculpture. »

(Deleuze 1981a: 11; 2002: 15)

 

He distinguishes three fundamental elements in his painting, which are the material structure, the round contour, and the raised image. If we think in sculptural terms, we would have to say: the armature; the pedestal, which would be mobile; and the Figure, which would move along the armature together with the pedestal. If we had to illustrate them (and to a certain degree this is necessary, as in the Man with Dog of 1953 [15]), we | would say: a sidewalk, some pools, and the people who emerge from the pools on the way to their “daily round.”⁸

(Deleuze 2003a: 8|9; 2003b: 6ab; 2005: 4c)

8. We here cite the complete text: Francis Bacon: “In thinking about them as sculptures it suddenly came to me how I could make them in paint, and do them much better in paint. It would be a kind of structured painting in which images, as it were, would arise from a river of flesh. It sounds a terribly romantic idea, but I see it very formally.” David Sylvester: “And what would the form be?” Bacon: “They would certainly be raised on structures.” Sylvester: “Several figures?” Bacon: “Yes, and there would probably be a pavement raised high out of its naturalistic setting, out of which they could move as though out of pools of flesh rose the images, if possible, of specific people walking their daily round. I hope to be || able to do figures arising out of their own flesh with their bowler hats and their umbrellas and make them figures as poignant as a Crucifixion” (Interviews, p. 83). And on p.108, Bacon adds: “I’ve thought about sculptures on a kind of armature, a very large armature made so that the sculpture could slide along it and people could even alter the positions of the sculpture as they wanted.”

(Deleuze 2003a: 154; 2003b: 174||175; 2005: 126)

 

Commentary:

[We discussed these parts of the Bacon interviews here, with illustration to the sculptural components found in the paintings. In Bacon’s paintings, we often see Figures on certain structures like beds or chairs, with a round contour line seemingly supporting the other structures. See for example:

 

[37] Francis Bacon: Portrait of George Dyer Talking, 1966

(Thanks alexalienart.com)

 

and:

 

[62] Francis Bacon: Triptych, Studies of the Human Body, 1970

center panel

(Thanks www.connect.in.com; asfolhasardem.wordpress.com)

 

Bacon says he wanted to make sculptures, but he ended up making paintings like sculptures. He describes a possible art work that might be a mixture of painting and sculpture, where there is pavement and Figures rise out of pools of their own flesh somehow. Deleuze says we see those elements in Man with Dog. Let us look at it again.

 

[15] Francis Bacon: Man with Dog, 1953

(www.ibiblio.org / webmuseum)

 

I am not certain, but perhaps the black streak beside the dog is ambiguously both something like a man standing while also being like a pool of flesh that the man arises from.]

 

 

 

 

From the text:

Et « L'Homme au chien » de 1953 reprenait les éléments fondamentaux de la peinture, mais dans un ensemble brouillé où la Figure n’était plus qu’une ombre, la flaque, un contour incertain, le trottoir, une surface assombrie.

(Deleuze 1981a: 24bc; 2002: 35c)

 

And the Man with Dog of 1953 [15] incorporates the three fundamental elements of painting, but within a scrambled whole where the Figure is nothing but a shadow; the puddle, an uncertain contour; and the sidewalk, a darkened surface.

(Deleuze 2003a: 27bc; 2003b: 30b; 2005: 22b)

 

Commentary:

[Deleuze distinguishes four periods in Bacon’s development as a painter. In the first period, the figure confronts a hard bright field of color surrounding it.

 

[1] Francis Bacon: Triptych, Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion, 1944.

(euroartmagazine.com Thanks Dr. Gerry Coulter)

 

In the second period, a “malerisch” figure is drawn against a curtained, tonal background.

 

[6] Francis Bacon: Head VI, 1949

(Thanks www.nytimes.com.)

 

The third period brings these two conventions together. But those conventions are brought together already in some cases of the second period, with Man with Dog as one of them. Let us examine it.

 

]15] Francis Bacon: Man with Dog, 1953

(www.ibiblio.org / webmuseum)

 

We see both a distinct figure on the sidewalk pavement, with that sidewalk area perhaps being the round area, and perhaps the blueish region of the street pavement is the field. (The dark line of the curb might then be the contour). All the while, there is the malerisch blurriness of the image. Deleuze also notes that it combines the three elements of painting, as we discussed in the previous quotation, but here the Figure is not the dog but the shadow of the man, which displays the escaping of the Figure from its own body.]

 

 

 

Texts:

 

Deleuze, Gilles. 1981a. Francis Bacon: Logique de la sensation. Tome I. Paris: Éditions de la différence.

Deleuze, Gilles. 1981b. Francis Bacon: Logique de la sensation. Tome II - Peintures. Paris: Éditions de la différence.

 

Deleuze, Gilles. 2002. Francis Bacon: Logique de la sensation. Paris: Éditions du seuil.

 

 

Deleuze, Gilles. 2003a. Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation [with translator’s introduction (Smith’s “Deleuze on Bacon: Three Conceptual Trajectories in The Logic of Sensation”) and author’s introduction to the English edition]. Translated by Daniel W. Smith. Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis.

 

 

Deleuze, Gilles. 2003b. Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation [with translator’s preface, preface to the fourth edition by Alain Badiou and Barbara Cassin, author’s foreword, and author’s preface to the English edition]. Translated by Daniel W. Smith. Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis.

 

 

Deleuze, Gilles. 2005. Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation [with translator’s preface, preface to the fourth edition by Alain Badiou and Barbara Cassin, author’s foreword, and author’s preface to the English edition]. Translated by Daniel W. Smith. London/ New York: Continuum.

 

 

Deleuze cites:

Bacon, Francis & David Sylvester. 1987. The Brutality of Fact: Interviews with Francis Bacon. New York: Thames & Hudson.

More information from the publisher here:
http://www.thamesandhudson.com/9780500274750.html

 

Images obtained gratefully from:

https://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/bacon/

 

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