The Absence of Image
I managed to get to the Francis Bacon exhibition at The National Portrait Gallery before it shut on Sunday. I’d been meaning to go since it opened in October. The final few days of an exhibition are never pleasant. All bodies and bags and phones and bustle and noise.
Not the best way to view art. Especially as an artist like Bacon really benefits from being able to not just to contemplate the content of his work, but to really spend time looking at how it is made. To trace the stroke of his brush. To look for the bumps and textures.
Up until the Man and Beast exhibition at the RA I’d not seen a huge amount of Bacon’s work in the flesh. Barring some pieces on display at Tate Britain, I’d mainly seen his work reproduced in books. The thing you realise when you are able to see his work in person is just how much of the canvas he doesn’t use. In his portrature his efforts are focussed into distinct zones. He leaves large portions of the space negative. A huge number of his paintings - including some of his most famous, like Head VI below - are even painted onto raw, unprimed canvas.
When you notice this, it changes the way you look at his work. It suddenly feels an awful lot more economical. Almost sketch like, with a lightness of touch. A lightness that is offset by the dark, vicious and visceral nature of his style.
When you read about Bacon and his journey as a painter, you discover that many of his choices were driven either by a lack of knowledge or a lack of skill. Andrew Brighton, writing about Bacon’s work in the 1950s tells us that “part of the intensity of his paintings up to the mid-50s is that they hover on the edge of obvious incompetence. Much of (his work) is thinly and curiously painted” (Bright, 2013, p38) . Bacon’s use of unprimed and raw canvas was also a decision which “simplified technical problems” - and placed him in stark opposition to Monet, Pissaro and the Impressionist movement. These highly skilled artists “painted onto smooth, white primed canvas” which had the effect of ‘maximising the vivacity’ of the work. “Bacon painted as if Impressionism had never happened” (Brighton, p.39)
The space that is not used starts to change the way we see the space that is used. The moral of the story? That to be effective, communication does not have to utilise the maximum available space with a chosen channel or medium. That less is sometimes so much more. What you don’t do can be as impactful as what you do. And when resources (or skill) are in short supply, naivity can actually work to your advantage in creating brilliant, impactful work.
Bibliography
Brighton, A. (2013) British Artists: Francis Bacon. London: Tate Publishing
