Bacon’s Pope, 1955, in Deleuze’s Francis Bacon commentary

 

by Corry Shores

[Search Blog Here. Index-tags are found on the bottom of the left column.]

 

[Central Entry Directory]

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

[I thank the image source very much:

artimage.org.uk

]

 

[The following is quotation. My commentary is in brackets (except for painting numbers in the quotation). Proofreading is incomplete, so please forgive my typos.]

 

 

Francis Bacon

 

Pope, 1955

 

(Thanks source: artimage.org.uk)

 

Painting 57 of Deleuze’s
Francis Bacon: Logique de la sensation. Tome II - Peintures
Painting [19] of the English translation
and Painting [57] of the Seuil 2002 French

[Note: The date given for this painting in the French editions is 1954]

 

 

From the text:

Plus encore le sourire goguenard, presque intenable, insupportable, du Pape de 1954 ou de l’homme assis sur le lit : on sent qu’il doit survivre à l’effacement du corps. Les yeux et la bouche sont si bien pris sur les lignes horizontales du tableau que le visage se dissipe, au profit des coordonnées spatiales où seul subsiste le sourire insistant. [57, 59]

(Deleuze 1981a: 23c; 2002: 34a)

 

Furthermore, there is the scoffing, almost untenable, and insupportable smile of the 1954 Pope [19] or of the man sitting on the bed [11]: one senses that the smile will survive the effacement of the body. The eyes and the mouth are so completely caught up in the horizontal lines of the painting that the face is dissipated, in favor of the spatial coordinates in which only the insistent smile remains.

(Deleuze 2003a: 26a; 2003b: 28c; 2005: 21a)

 

Commentary:

[Deleuze discovers forces acting in and on the Figures in Bacon’s paintings. By means of these forces, the Figure’s body is trying to escape from itself through some opening in the body, like the mouth for example. As it is trying to escape itself, the body in a sense is dissipating or becoming effaced. The forces acting on and in the body are highly contortive. It is hard to imagine the Figure actually enjoying it or finding it pleasing in the sort of relaxed way that invites a smile. So it is odd to see the smiles on Bacon’s figures.

(askyfilledwithshootingstars.com)

(In this case, the smile seems to be scoffing, and it is “untemable” and “unsupportable” perhaps because such a smile could not endure for long under the tense conditions in the rest of the body.) So there is a disjunction of sorts between the smile and the body. The smile displays what is beginning to escape the body, because the contortive body behind the smile is what is beginning to dissipate. We are to recall the Cheshire Cat whose smile remains after the disappearance of its body.]

 

 

 

 

From the text:

 

L’hystérique, c’est á la fois celui qui impose sa présence, mais aussi celui pour qui les choses et les êtres sont présents, trop présents, et qui donne á toute chose et communique á tout être cet excès de présence. [...] Bacon peut dire avec humour que le sourire hystérique qu’il peint sur le portrait de 1953, sur la tête humaine de 1953, sur le pape de 1955, vient du « modèle » qui était « très nerveux, presque hystérique ». Mais c’est tout le tableau qui est hystérisé.

(Deleuze 1981a: 36c; 2002: 52c)

 

The hysteric is at the same time someone who imposes his or her presence, but also someone for whom things and beings are present, too present, and who attributes to every thing and communicates to every being this excessive presence. [...] Bacon explains rather testily that the hysterical smile he painted on the || 1953 portrait [11] , on the human head of 1953 [13] , and on the 1955 Pope [19] came from a “model” who was  very neurotic and almost hysterical.” But in fact it is the whole painting that is hystericized.

(Deleuze 2003a: 44b; 2003b: 50||51; 2005: 36c)

 

Commentary:

[When an image represents a situation, we might say that the image provides itself in its presence, and the represented element is given indirectly through the representation. Processing images representationally is something more or less cognitive and cerebral. Bacon’s paintings avoid representation while still providing intense sensations, and thus we are not distracted by the cognitive elements and instead are left with the raw presences of the image and its sensations. And we might also note that when we experience an overwhelming sensory experience, it attests both to the presence of those sensations as well as to the presence of whatever may be causing them, including the “forces” that are at work in imposing themselves upon our sensory apparatus. And given how overwhelming the sensations are, it attests to the excessiveness of this presence that has such a disruptive effect on our body’s workings. The Figures in Bacon’s paintings can be said to both themselves experience and express this excessive presence as well as causing us to have an overwhelming sensory experience, and thus they communicate that excessive presence to us. We might also find that in such experiences of sensory overload, our bodies begin to undergo confusions of many physical sorts, like certain components of the sensation being at odds with others. We may for example want to look away from the image in disgust while at the same time being drawn to it with rapt and eager curiosity. While under this mode of experience, we could perhaps notice certain traits of hysteria, coming especially from the lack of control of all the influences, tensions, sensations, and so on wrestling throughout our body. Deleuze’s point in these passages is that the hysteria of these Figures is something found not just in the smiles but throughout their bodies and in fact throughout the rest of the painting. For, the other elements in the painting are involved in the play of forces that give rise the Figure’s hystericized body and smile.]

 

 

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.

 

 

 

Images obtained gratefully from:

https://artimage.org.uk/13180/francis-bacon/pope--1955

 

.

Bacon’s Sphinx, 1954, in Deleuze’s Francis Bacon commentary

 

by Corry Shores

[Search Blog Here. Index-tags are found on the bottom of the left column.]

 

[Central Entry Directory]

[Deleuze Entry Directory]

[Francis Bacon (painter), entry directory]

[Deleuze’s Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation, entry directory]

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

[I am profoundly grateful to the sources of these images:

museumtv.nl

www.buzzle.com

euroartmagazine.com

Credits given at the end.]

 

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

 

 

Francis Bacon

 

Sphinx, 1954

 

(Thanks museumtv.nl)

 

 

Painting 81 of Deleuze’s
Francis Bacon: Logique de la sensation. Tome II - Peintures
Painting [18] of the English translation
and Painting [81] of the Seuil 2002 French

 

 

From the text:

À travers les siècles, bien des choses font de Bacon un Égyptien. Les aplats, le contour, la forme et le fond comme deux secteurs également proches sur le même plan, l’extrême proximité de la Figure (présence), le système de la netteté. Bacon rend à | l’Égypte l’hommage du sphinx, et déclare son amour de la sculpture égyptienne [...] Toutefois, si proche que Bacon soit de l’Égypte, comment expliquer que son sphinx [81] soit brouillé, traité « malerisch » ?

(Deleuze 1981a: 79|80; 2002: 116b,c)

 

Through the centuries, there are many things that make Bacon an Egyptian: the fields, the contour, the form and the ground as two equally close sectors lying on the same plane, the extreme proximity of the Figure (presence), the system of clarity [netteté]. Bacon renders to Egypt the homage of the sphinx [18], and declares his love for Egyptian sculpture [...] Yet as close as Bacon may be to Egypt, how can we explain the fact that his sphinx is scrambled, treated in a “malerisch” manner?

(Deleuze 2003a: 100ab,c; 2003b: 123c,124b; 2005:86b,c)

[Note, the painting in the French editions is cited at the end of the paragraph, and in the English editions near the beginning.]

 

Commentary:

[Bacon admired Egyptian art. Deleuze identifies certain features in Bacon’s style that can be attributed to that influence. For example, in Egyptian bas-relief, the figures are set along the 2-dimensional plane of their background.

 

(Thanks www.buzzle.com)

 

We often see something similar in Bacon’s paintings.

 

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

(euroartmagazine.com Thanks Dr. Gerry Coulter)

 

But in this Sphinx painting, where Bacon pays tribute to Egyptian art, the Figure does not itself have very clearly discernible features, and it is not so clearly discernible with respect to its background. Deleuze wonders why.

 

[18] Francis Bacon: Sphinx, 1954

(Thanks museumtv.nl)

 

Bacon, we learn, adds manual, accidental traits to disrupt the figurative givens, which is why his art is not simply geometrical and discernible like Egyptian art.]

 

 

 

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.

 

 

 

Images obtained gratefully from:

https://www.museumtv.nl/app/uploads/2016/10/1953-Francis-Bacon-Sphinx.jpg

 

www.buzzle.com/articles/bas-relief-vs-high-relief-sculpture-technique.html

 

http://www.euroartmagazine.com/new/?issue=6&page=1&content=140

.

Bacon’s Study after Velazquez’s Portrait of Pope Innocent X, 1953, in Deleuze’s Francis Bacon commentary

 

by Corry Shores

[Search Blog Here. Index-tags are found on the bottom of the left column.]

 

[Central Entry Directory]

[Deleuze Entry Directory]

[Francis Bacon (painter), entry directory]

[Deleuze’s Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation, entry directory]

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

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

artinvest2000.com

Credits given at the end.]

 

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

 

 

Francis Bacon

 

Study after Velazquez’s Portrait of Pope Innocent X, 1953

 

(Thanks artinvest2000.com)

 

 

Painting 54 of Deleuze’s
Francis Bacon: Logique de la sensation. Tome II - Peintures
Painting [16] of the English translation
and Painting [54] of the Seuil 2002 French

 

 

From the text:

Tout le corps s’échappe par la bouche qui crie. Par la bouche ronde du pape [54] ou de la nourrice [55] le corps s’échappe comme par une artère.

(Deleuze 1981a: 23c; 2002: 33c)

 

The entire body escapes through the screaming mouth. The body escapes through the round mouth of the Pope or the nurse, as if through an artery [16, 24].

(Deleuze 2003a: 25c; 2003b: 28a; 2005:20d)

 

Commentary:

[In Bacon’s paintings, forces apply constricting pressure upon the Figures while at the same time there are forces internal to the Figure that are pushing outward, perhaps as a result of the constriction, like when squeezing a water balloon. On account of this play of forces, the Figure’s body tries to escape itself; and given the chance, it will dissipate through that escaping action. One exit for the escape is through the screaming mouth.

]

 

 

From the text:

À ce point extrême de la dissipation cosmique, dans un cosmos fermé mais illimité, c’est bien évident que la Figure ne peut plus être isolée, prise dans une limite, piste ou parallélépipède : on se trouve devant d’autres coordonnées. Déjà la Figure du pape [54] qui crie se tient derrière les lames épaisses, presque les lattes d’un rideau de sombre transparence : tout le haut du corps s’estompe, et ne subsiste que comme une marque sur un suaire rayé, tandis que le bas du corps reste encore hors du rideau qui s’évase. D’où l’effet d’éloignement progressif comme si le corps était tiré en arrière par la moitié supérieure. Et sur une assez longue période, le procédé est fréquent chez Bacon. Les mêmes lames verticales de rideau entourent et raient partiellement l’abominable sourire de « Étude pour un portrait [59] », tandis que la tête et le corps semblent aspirés || vers le fond, vers les lattes horizontales de la persienne.

(Deleuze 1981a: 24b; 2002: 34||35)

 

At this extreme point of cosmic dissipation, in a closed but unlimited cosmos, it is clear that the Figure can no longer be isolated or put inside a limit, a ring or parallelepiped: we are faced with different coordinates. The Figure of the screaming Pope [16] is already hidden behind the thick folds (which are almost laths) of a dark, transparent curtain: the top of the body is indistinct, persisting only as if it were a mark on a striped shroud, while the bottom of the body still remains outside the curtain, which is opening out. This produces the effect of a progressive elongation, as if the body were being pulled backwards by its upper half. For a rather long period of time, this technique appeared frequently in Bacon’s works. The same vertical curtain strips surround and partially line the abominable smile of Study for a Portrait [11], while the head and the body seem to sink into the background, into the horizontal slats of the blind.

(Deleuze 2003a: 26d; 2003b: 29b; 2005: 21c)

 

Commentary:

[We often see in Bacon’s paintings the Figure’s being confined within the limits of a geometrical structure, like a circular ring or platform or a rectilinear parallelepiped. But in this painting, which is during Bacon’s malerisch period, there are vertical smear stripes that seeming pull the Figure downward and sideward out of the bottom of its confining structure.

Bacon: Study after Velazquez’s Portrait of Pope Innocent X, 1953

(Thanks artinvest2000.com)

]

 

From the text:

Il faut considérer le cas spécial du cri. Pourquoi Bacon peut-il voir dans le cri l’un des plus hauts objets de la peinture [54] [55] ? « Peindre le cri… »

(Deleuze 1981a: 41a; 2002: 60b)

 

We must consider the special case of the scream. Why does Bacon think of the scream as one of the highest objects of painting? “Paint the scream . . .” [16, 24].

(Deleuze 2003a: 51a; 2003b: 60a; 2005: 42d)

 

Commentary:

[Recall from the first commentary the notion of the forces acting upon and within the Figure. To paint the scream is to paint those invisible forces.]

 

 

 

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.

 

 

 

Images obtained gratefully from:

http://www.artinvest2000.com/bacon_study-innocent-x.htm

 

.

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

 

by Corry Shores

[Search Blog Here. Index-tags are found on the bottom of the left column.]

 

[Central Entry Directory]

[Deleuze Entry Directory]

[Francis Bacon (painter), entry directory]

[Deleuze’s Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation, entry directory]

[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/

 

.

Bacon’s Triptych, Three Studies of the Human Head, 1953, in Deleuze’s Francis Bacon commentary

 

by Corry Shores

[Search Blog Here. Index-tags are found on the bottom of the left column.]

 

[Central Entry Directory]

[Deleuze Entry Directory]

[Francis Bacon (painter), entry directory]

[Deleuze’s Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation, entry directory]

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

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

artimage.org.uk

Credits given at the end.]

 

[The following is quotation. My commentary is in brackets.]

 

 

Francis Bacon

 

Triptych, Three Studies of the Human Head, 1953

 

(Thanks source: artimage.org.uk)

 

Painting 60 of Deleuze’s
Francis Bacon: Logique de la sensation. Tome II - Peintures
Painting [13] of the English translation
and Painting [60] of the Seuil 2002 French

 

 

From the text:

Et si l’on rêve d’introduire un ordre dans un triptyque, nous croyons que celui de 1953 impose cet ordre qui ne se confond pas avec la succession des panneaux : la bouche qui crie au centre, le sourire hystérique à gauche, et à droite enfin la tête qui s’incline et se dissipe. [60]

(Deleuze 1981a: 24a; 2002: 34b)

 

And if one dreams of introducing an order into a triptych, I believe that the 1953 triptych [13] imposes the following order, which is not to be confused with the succession of panels: the screaming mouth in the center, the hysterical smile on the left, and finally, the inclined and dissipated head on the right.

(Deleuze 2003a: 26b; 2003b: 28d; 2005: 21b)

 

Commentary:

[Deleuze notes how generally there are no narrative relations between the Figures in Bacon’s paintings. This means also there would probably be no ordering relations between Figures displayed in separate panels. However, Deleuze says that were there to be some exception, it could be this triptych, because the panels’ successive states can be seen as displaying the stages of the self-escape of the Figure’s body. {1} First it begins its escape through the mouth through the scream. {2} Then it begins it dissipation, evidenced by the disjunction between the hysterical smile and and the tensed body (see the first quotation in painting 11.) {3} The body is now dissipating, with the face losing all form and the body slumping as it dissipates. When we pass from left to right, we might even hear a sort of melodic drop as we go from panel to panel.

(Thanks source: artimage.org.uk)

Note: the text says that the screaming mouth is in the center panel and that the hysterical smile is the left panel. In the French painting edition, they are in fact displayed in this order:

(Deleuze 1981b: painting 60)

]

 

 

From the text:

L’hystérique, c’est á la fois celui qui impose sa présence, mais aussi celui pour qui les choses et les êtres sont présents, trop présents, et qui donne á toute chose et communique á tout être cet excès de présence. [...] Bacon peut dire avec humour que le sourire hystérique qu’il peint sur le portrait de 1953, sur la tête humaine de 1953, sur le pape de 1955, vient du « modèle » qui était « très nerveux, presque hystérique ». Mais c’est tout le tableau qui est hystérisé.

(Deleuze 1981a: 36c; 2002: 52c)

 

The hysteric is at the same time someone who imposes his or her presence, but also someone for whom things and beings are present, too present, and who attributes to every thing and communicates to every being this excessive presence. [...] Bacon explains rather testily that the hysterical smile he painted on the || 1953 portrait [11], on the human head of 1953 [13] , and on the 1955 Pope [19] came from a “model” who was  very neurotic and almost hysterical.” But in fact it is the whole painting that is hystericized.

(Deleuze 2003a: 63b; 2003b: 75d; 2005: 36c)

 

Commentary:

[When an image represents a situation, we might say that the image provides itself in its presence, and the represented element is given indirectly through the representation. Processing images representationally is something more or less cognitive and cerebral. Bacon’s paintings avoid representation while still providing intense sensations, and thus we are not distracted by the cognitive elements and instead are left with the raw presences of the image and its sensations. And we might also note that when we experience an overwhelming sensory experience, it attests both to the presence of those sensations as well as to the presence of whatever may be causing them, including the “forces” that are at work in imposing themselves upon our sensory apparatus. And given how overwhelming the sensations are, it attests to the excessiveness of this presence that has such a disruptive effect on our body’s workings. The Figures in Bacon’s paintings can be said to both themselves experience and express this excessive presence as well as causing us to have an overwhelming sensory experience, and thus they communicate that excessive presence to us. We might also find that in such experiences of sensory overload, our bodies begin to undergo confusions of many physical sorts, like certain components of the sensation being at odds with others. We may for example want to look away from the image in disgust while at the same time being drawn to it with rapt and eager curiosity. While under this mode of experience, we could perhaps notice certain traits of hysteria, coming especially from the lack of control of all the influences, tensions, sensations, and so on wrestling throughout our body. Deleuze’s point in these passages is that the hysteria of these Figures is something found not just in the smiles but throughout their bodies and in fact throughout the rest of the painting. For, the other elements in the painting are involved in the play of forces that give rise the Figure’s hystericized body and smile.]

 

 

From the text:

 

Dans les triptyques, c’est donc sur l’horizontale qu’on cherchera le rythme- | témoin à valeur constante. Cette horizontale peut présenter plusieurs Figures. D’abord, celle du plat sourire hystérique : non seulement comme nous l’avons vu, pour le triptyque de tête de 1953 (panneau gauche), mais déjà pour le triptyque des monstres de 1944 (panneau central), où la tête aux yeux bandés n’est pas du tout une tête qui s’apprête à mordre, mais une tête abominable qui sourit, suivant une déformation horizontale de la bouche. [60] [80]

(Deleuze 1981a: 51-52; 2002: 74b)

 

In the triptychs, it is thus on the horizontal that we must seek the attendant-rhythm with a constant value. This horizontal can be presented in several Figures. First, there is the flat hysterical smile, which appears not only, as we have seen, in the 1953 triptych of the head (left panel [13]), but already in the 1944 triptych of monsters (central panel) [1], where the head with the bandaged eyes is not a head preparing to die, but an abominable head that smiles along the horizontal deformation of the mouth.

(Deleuze 2003a: 44b; 2003b: 75; 2005: 54b)

 

Commentary:

[Deleuze identifies three rhythmic tendencies or “figures” in Bacon’s triptychs. We might think of these rhythmic figures as being tendencies or forces of variation impressing themselves into the viewing experience, with all these figures being what they are individually on account of their relation to the other forces. There is an active rhythm, which acts upon or against a passive rhythm, which is the recipient, patient, or simply the opposite in a ‘losing’ way of the active tendencies. So if the Figure in one panel implies a force or motion that is rising, then the passive rhythm will be found in another Figure implying a downward force or motion. There is always a third rhythmic figure, which is like a baseline against which the other-two are oriented. So if one Figure has a rising motion, and another a falling motion, then the third will have a horizontal motion (or a horizontal stability), since that would be the neutral stance between rising and falling. Often times there is a horizontal smile in Bacon’s Figures which serve this attendant rhythmic function, and we see it here in the center panel.

(Thanks source: artimage.org.uk)

Note: as mentioned above, the text says the smile is in the left panel, which is how it is ordered in the Paintings volume.]

 

 

From the text:

 

On comprend du coup que les triptyques aient besoin de cette vivacité lumineuse ou colorée, et se concilient rarement avec un traitement « malerisch » global : le triptyque de tête de 1953 serait une de ces rares exceptions. [60]

(Deleuze 1981a: 55d; 2002: 80c)

 

We at once realize that the triptychs have need of this luminous or colored vivacity, and are rarely susceptible to a global “malerisch” treatment; the 1953 triptych of the head [13] would be one of the rare exceptions.

(Deleuze 2003a: 44b; 2003b: 84ab; 2005: 59c. Note: in 2003a, there are no quotation marks around malerisch.)

 

Commentary:

[The malerisch style was described previously in this way: “We see everywhere the reign of the blurry [flou] and the indeterminate, the action of a depth that pulls at the form, a thickness on which shadows play, | a dark nuanced texture, effects of compression and elongation - In short, a malerisch treatment, as Sylvester suggests” (Deleuze 2003a: 26|27; 2003b: 29c; 2005: 21d). In the triptychs, there is a coupling of Figures across panels. Often in the triptychs, this coupling is in part somehow effected by violently projecting the figures onto a uniform color field. (Perhaps the uniformity of the color field prevents there from being too much discernible visual givens standing between the spatially separated Figures, thereby compelling us to couple them, and perhaps the vibrancy of the colors makes the Figures stand out more distinctly, intensifying their coupling.) But there is an exception to this pattern, namely the triptych in question. The Figures here are sort of blurred into an uncolored background.]

 

 

 

 

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.

 

 

 

 

Images obtained gratefully from:

https://www.artimage.org.uk/4598/francis-bacon/three-studies-of-the-human-head--1953

 

.

Bacon’s Study for a Portrait, 1953, in Deleuze’s Francis Bacon commentary

 

by Corry Shores

[Search Blog Here. Index-tags are found on the bottom of the left column.]

 

[Central Entry Directory]

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[I thank the image source very much:

http://askyfilledwithshootingstars.com

]

 

[The following is quotation. My commentary is in brackets (except for painting numbers in the quotation). Proofreading is incomplete, so please forgive my typos.]

 

 

Francis Bacon

 

Study for a Portrait, 1953

 

(Thanks source: askyfilledwithshootingstars.com)

 

Painting 59 of Deleuze’s
Francis Bacon: Logique de la sensation. Tome II - Peintures
Painting [11] of the English translation
and Painting [59] of the Seuil 2002 French

 

 

From the text:

Plus encore le sourire goguenard, presque intenable, insupportable, du Pape de 1954 ou de l’homme assis sur le lit : on sent qu’il doit survivre à l’effacement du corps. Les yeux et la bouche sont si bien pris sur les lignes horizontales du tableau que le visage se dissipe, au profit des coordonnées spatiales où seul subsiste le sourire insistant. [57, 59]

(Deleuze 1981a: 23c; 2002: 34a)

 

Furthermore, there is the scoffing, almost untenable, and insupportable smile of the 1954 Pope [19] or of the man sitting on the bed [11]: one senses that the smile will survive the effacement of the body. The eyes and the mouth are so completely caught up in the horizontal lines of the painting that the face is dissipated, in favor of the spatial coordinates in which only the insistent smile remains.

(Deleuze 2003a: 26a; 2003b: 28c; 2005: 21a)

 

Commentary:

[Deleuze discovers forces acting in and on the Figures in Bacon’s paintings. By means of these forces, the Figure’s body is trying to escape from itself through some opening in the body, like the mouth for example. As it is trying to escape itself, the body in a sense is dissipating or becoming effaced. The forces acting on and in the body are highly contortive. It is hard to imagine the Figure actually enjoying it or finding it pleasing in the sort of relaxed way that invites a smile. So it is odd to see the smiles on Bacon’s figures.

(askyfilledwithshootingstars.com)

So there is a disjunction of sorts between the smile and the body. The smile displays what is beginning to escape the body, because the contortive body behind the smile is what is beginning to dissipate. We are to recall the Cheshire Cat whose smile remains after the disappearance of its body.]

 

 

From the text:

Déjà la Figure du pape qui crie se tient derrière les lames épaisses, presque les lattes d’un rideau de sombre transparence : tout le haut du corps s’estompe, et ne subsiste que comme une marque sur un suaire rayé, tandis que le bas du corps reste encore hors du rideau qui s’évase. D’où l’effet d’éloignement progressif comme si le corps était tiré en arrière par la moitié supérieure. Et sur une assez longue période, le procédé est fréquent chez Bacon. Les mêmes lames verticales de rideau entourent et raient partiellement l’abominable sourire de « Étude pour un portrait », tandis que la tête et le corps semblent aspirés || vers le fond, vers les lattes horizontales de la persienne.

(Deleuze 1981a: 24b; 2002: 34||35)

 

The Figure of the screaming Pope [16] is already hidden behind the thick folds (which are almost laths) of a dark, transparent curtain: the top of the body is indistinct, persisting only as if it were a mark on a striped shroud, while the bottom of the body still remains outside the curtain, which is opening out. This produces the effect of a progressive elongation, as if the body were being pulled backwards by its upper half. For a rather long period of time, this technique appeared frequently in Bacon’s works. The same vertical curtain strips surround and partially line the abominable smile of Study for a Portrait [11], while the head and the body seem to sink into the background, into the horizontal slats of the blind.

(Deleuze 2003a: 26d; 2003b: 29b; 2005: 21c)

 

Commentary:

[During the “malerisch” period in Bacon’s development, he often shrouded the Figures behind blurry streaks that appear like a thin veil or curtain that slightly obscures the Figure. (In this case, however, the shrouding is not so obviously in front of the Figure, but see the streaks that are evident in the head.)]

(askyfilledwithshootingstars.com)

 

 

From the text:

 

L’hystérique, c’est á la fois celui qui impose sa présence, mais aussi celui pour qui les choses et les êtres sont présents, trop présents, et qui donne á toute chose et communique á tout être cet excès de présence. [...] Bacon peut dire avec humour que le sourire hystérique qu’il peint sur le portrait de 1953, sur la tête humaine de 1953, sur le pape de 1955, vient du « modèle » qui était « très nerveux, presque hystérique ». Mais c’est tout le tableau qui est hystérisé.

(Deleuze 1981a: 36c; 2002: 52c)

 

The hysteric is at the same time someone who imposes his or her presence, but also someone for whom things and beings are present, too present, and who attributes to every thing and communicates to every being this excessive presence. [...] Bacon explains rather testily that the hysterical smile he painted on the || 1953 portrait [11], on the human head of 1953 [13] , and on the 1955 Pope [19] came from a “model” who was  very neurotic and almost hysterical.” But in fact it is the whole painting that is hystericized.

(Deleuze 2003a: 44b; 2003b: 50||51; 2005: 36c)

 

Commentary:

[When an image represents a situation, we might say that the image provides itself in its presence, and the represented element is given indirectly through the representation. Processing images representationally is something more or less cognitive and cerebral. Bacon’s paintings avoid representation while still providing intense sensations, and thus we are not distracted by the cognitive elements and instead are left with the raw presences of the image and its sensations. And we might also note that when we experience an overwhelming sensory experience, it attests both to the presence of those sensations as well as to the presence of whatever may be causing them, including the “forces” that are at work in imposing themselves upon our sensory apparatus. And given how overwhelming the sensations are, it attests to the excessiveness of this presence that has such a disruptive effect on our body’s workings. The Figures in Bacon’s paintings can be said to both themselves experience and express this excessive presence as well as causing us to have an overwhelming sensory experience, and thus they communicate that excessive presence to us. We might also find that in such experiences of sensory overload, our bodies begin to undergo confusions of many physical sorts, like certain components of the sensation being at odds with others. We may for example want to look away from the image in disgust while at the same time being drawn to it with rapt and eager curiosity. While under this mode of experience, we could perhaps notice certain traits of hysteria, coming especially from the lack of control of all the influences, tensions, sensations, and so on wrestling throughout our body. Deleuze’s point in these passages is that the hysteria of these Figures is something found not just in the smiles but throughout their bodies and in fact throughout the rest of the painting. For, the other elements in the painting are involved in the play of forces that give rise the Figure’s hystericized body and smile.]

 

 

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.

 

 

 

Images obtained gratefully from:

http://askyfilledwithshootingstars.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/

 

.