Beauty Of The Flesh: Francis Bacon at MASP
On View Through 7.28.2024
MASP: MUSEU DE ARTE DE SÃO PAULO
Rising up and out of the Trianon/MASP metro station, it had already begun to rain. It was nearly noon. Across the entire corridor of the bustling Paulista Ave, one of São Paulo’s largest commercial areas of museums, restaurants, malls, homelessness, etc., umbrellas were beginning to sprout like black flowers amidst the haze, the chemical miasma, the combustion from rain water and warm concrete, motor oil and automobile fumes. Cops, the Polícia Militar, were standing in formation—seemed like a thousand of them, like a bee colony of the state. Paulista was even becoming littered by a small population of placards, as it was often the setting for marches, doubling as a political battleground; protestors, and of course, their counters. Yasmin (my wife) and I giddy off a dose of cachaça and coffee. We needed a quick libation. We didn’t want to see Francis Bacon completely abstinent. No use in being completely clear minded before being beheaded. For the paintings of Francis Bacon, Beleza Da Carne—one best be a bit tilted, in one direction or another.
MASP at Night in São Paulo (Courtesy MASP)
If the scene of Paulista feels at all sinister, or even something out of a comic book—think Gotham City, think Batman ’89 —then you are certainly on the right track. I think Paulista was the same as it always was, always will be. With one exception. Looming, practically levitating in the large concrete structure, which appears to defy gravity as it hovers column-less over the avenue, is the São Paulo Museum of Art (from here out referred to as MASP). In its furthest wing, dedicated to its rotating exhibitions, is a showing of 19 paintings by Irish modern master, painter of anguish, Francis Bacon—the exhibition’s title, A Beleza Da Carne, translates to “The Beauty of the Flesh”, as one interpreter would have it. In another iteration, one could also find it means “The Beauty of Meat”; both, at any rate, exquisitely appropriate when seen through the lens of Bacon’s very human, very fleshy oeuvre.
Entering into the museum was an easy chore. São Paulo, probably because of the rain, was still sleepy, somnolent, languid. It was as though the exhibit were just for us. A private exhibition with no lines to wait in, no crowds to fight through. Just straight up the stairs into the hovering museum. Bacon! In isolation—spectacular!
On another note, mentioning rain and smog and umbrellas popping up, one could feel the whole of Paulista had been set up for a day of Francis Bacon. Afterall, no painter exudes the smog of torture and anguish, of crude yet dignified portraiture like Bacon. Not to mention, umbrellas were a constant enough thematic element of his work. It would be like going to see a Dali exhibit, and inexplicably, lobsters crawling the sidewalk at every turn. Or travelling to see Van Gogh, amidst patches of wild, bursting sunflowers. Gotham City, Batman ’89 is not without its double entendre either; it was in this film that The Joker, played by Jack Nicholson, spares a lonely Bacon painting from destruction.
Francis Bacon by John Deakin, 1952
Entering into MASP’s rotating exhibition wing, Beleza Da Carne is already striking, as two large photographs, portraits of Bacon himself, mural size, loom over either side of the entryway. The walls of the four large exhibition spaces are deep, earthy, felt green. In the natural fashion of Bacon’s preservation ritual, every painting behind glass, every painting adorned with a glistening gold frame. Beleza Da Carne is an exhibition of 19 works by the late Francis Bacon, exhibited chronologically, beginning in the year 1947, and ending in 1988.
In the wide gallery promenade, dwarfed by 20 ft tall ceilings (at least!), I, along with my wife, enter into Bacon’s world. Already there is no escape. The paintings confront the viewer—they will not allow themselves to be ignored. No way to ignore a world where there are seemingly no whispers, only screams. Where mouths and eyes are fixed in a nightmare, blasted away, transfigured by a perverted brush. Faces are mangled, bodies warp to the whimsy of their creator; sex and violence are merged, no, slammed together as if they were met inside a particle collider. Everything in a Francis Bacon painting is either frozen or on fire, either moving at the speed of sound, or dead still. There are no mild movements, temperatures or middle roads. Everything is combustible. Terror reigns, suspended in a black abyss, only barricaded by the standard that is gold.
Author with Head I, 1947-1948 (Courtesy of Judson Vereen)
One of the first pictures of the exhibit is Head I, an image from the years 1947-1948. Painted on hardboard and one of the exhibits earliest pictures, it contains many of the hallmarks of Bacon’s work to come. However, it is not without its peculiarities. For one, it is a rather small piece, the smallest work in the show. Here, we see what could even hardly be considered a head at all. The viewer can only be said to see a vision of a head, a head that might someday be. And although there exists a mouth, which more or less floats, and an ear which connects to a bust, there is no true “head” to speak of. In some sense, the head has been either dashed away by paint, is a figure of the painter’s imagination, or is simply implied. In the picture, we also find the clear themes of line and form with which we have come to associate Bacon; there exists what seems to be a metal bedframe, perhaps a pillow like shape at the bottom of the board and geometric line work, typically suggesting the corner of a room, or when isolated in this case, appears to function like suspension wire, as you would find in a hospital, stabilizing an injured patient in a bed. Of course, this is all suspended in the black. We have little context, little entry or exit ways. Nowhere for the subject to find refuge. Perhaps the subject has lost his head, and is perhaps being slightly comforted by a series of colorful strokes, possibly indicating a blanket. At the very least, the subject of Head I is given a screaming mouth and an ear. Suggesting that Head I is stuck in a feedback loop—at once his very own torturer, and also his only audience.
Study for a Seated Figure II, 1953
Among the second salon of the MASP exhibit, one is forcefully confronted with an image of outstanding execution. Bacon’s Study for a Seated Figure II, of 1953. As opposed to his work in the early 1940’s, in the later years of that decade Bacon seemed to be making shifts towards not only a fine tuning of his style and overall aesthetic, but also his content and commentary. In the early 1940’s, Bacon’s canvases practically spilled out with painterly imagery. Brush strokes were impulsive, colors were rendered at their fullest saturation. Canvases were arguably overpainted, filled out in every direction. By the later years of the decade, Bacon’s fascination with black had become readily apparent. The luster of his burnt oranges and reds, violets and earth tones had been replaced by the abyss, the vacuum of nothingness. And with this desaturation of color, came with it a kind of minimalism of line and form. In fact, many canvases from this period were left with raw canvas exposed.
In Study for a Seated Figure II, we are met with a handless man, in a full suit and tie, appearing to be caught midscream. Sitting upright in what appears to be a typical Bacon bedframe, his body becomes deconstructed as one moves down the canvas—where his face is in completion, his legs and feet are mere suggestions, sketched out in quick, darting paint strokes which only vaguely hint at their form. When one gets closer to the work itself, one can sense a watered-down application of the paint. Lines and forms are fairly soft, the work itself is not overwrought with extraneous texture, rather, in contrast, has a delicate nature to its presence. To paint like this, in my experience, is the entry of confidence. Bacon, it seems, no longer requires himself to necessarily aggravate his paintings with aggressive paint strokes and heavily layered textural surfaces, his brush, and his decision making can describe the angst, the isolation, more focused, cleaner, if you will. It is not the aggressive marks of Bacon’s are gone, it is that they are done so quicker—he is not painting on these canvases over and over.
Many canvases of this period make great use of unprimed raw canvas as an element of color. This is often done in concert with geometrical shapes and in some cases, wider plains of view. In the 1950`s, Bacon was wildly productive, introducing many of the themes and much of the imagery that are indelibly connected to the Bacon canon. This includes, but is not limited to images of the Pope, the seated male figures, the warped male portraits and the famed animal carcass paintings. By the 1960’s, though many of the basic themes would continue (warped and transfigured portraits, screams, studies of the male figure), a new Bacon dynamic was blossoming. In this decade, Bacon would become slightly detached from the black of his earlier canvases of the 1950’s, and rejuvenate his imagery with lush greens, blood reds and violets.
Two figures with a monkey, 1973
As the exhibition continues, I wish I had another dose of cachaça. Not to numb myself for any reason, but rather to become ever more vulnerable among the haunted pictures. What was once a darkened, muted exhibition of his early work in electric whites and thick as night blacks, the later wings of the exhibit showcase a more playful Bacon, if not in theme, at least, perhaps in color. One could sense that his work had become ever more focused; themes were laid out bare and came naturally. His shapes, his lines, his use of space were locked in and tight. Even his canvases began to take on a more uniform size and, even more importantly, dimension. Francis Bacon had spent over three decades fine tuning what it is he wanted to say, and could now play inside the verbiage. When compared to the grotesque imagery of the 1940’s and 1950’s, the 70’s and 80’s were a blossoming of more refreshing color combinations. The bright oranges and sky blues of the period, punctuated by his thematic geometric lines and now arrows, newspaper clippings, and everyday objects are in a sense, the colors of a painter who may have lightened up a bit in older age. To put it directly, it appears the Irish painter was having fun.
Two images from the exhibition sum up this observation fairly concretely, 1988’s Jet of Water, and Two Figures with a Monkey of 1973. At the near end of the exhibit, true to the nature of Bacon’s dogged and relentless pursuit of personal imagery, a cloud is lifted. As if the struggle was not all for nought, color appears, whimsical, playful, frisky, lively expressive.
Author with Jet of Water, 1988 (Courtesy of Judson Vereen)
In these paintings we see some of the themes of the late 60’s play out—dangling light bulbs, figures, beds and tables suspended not in the black, but in rooms, designed like arenas, the subjects of which are seen as spectacles, centered, though manipulated beyond recognition. Backgrounds have become monochromatic, large swaths of canvas are dedicated to panel like shapes. Geometric line work is no longer abstracted to floating borders. The paintings here have a more defined ground, space, and size. Objects and shapes and the human form have a more realistic relation to one another. These later Bacon’s are still Francis Bacon, no doubt. They contain within them all the violence and gusto that was so tightly packed into his early work. However, one feels as though the subjects were better allowed to breathe. He may keep them somewhat confined, true, but he was no longer torturing them.
From Muybridge’s “The Human Figure in Motion: Woman Emptying a Bowl of Water and Paralytic Child Walking on All Fours, 1965. (Courtesy of Judson Vereen)
Beleza Da Carne was not billed as a retrospective per se. The show boasts 19 works over the course of four decades, but is too small a showing to constitute a retrospective. However, its layout, chronological ordering and spatial organization may constitute a miniaturized version of such an effort. What we have in Beleza Da Carne is a collection that does highlight the main themes and styles of Francis Bacon’s lifelong efforts in painting. Upon close inspection, the earlier canvases are brutal; not just in their pictorial elements, but also in the bare elements of painting. Canvases appear to be painted over numerous times. Thicker, textured layers suggest multiple attempts at an image—an artist relentlessly and perhaps, even somewhat clumsily tackling his canvases, eventually painting much of the images out, leaving us with the terrified beauty we have come to love him for. Though through time, Bacon simplifies, organizes and cleans up the act brilliantly. Beauty of the Flesh, Beauty of the Meat, indeed.
Bacon’s lifelong commitment to the art, the act, the process of painting is hard to overestimate. It is a story of a man and his art that practically expands the entirety of the 20th century. Born in 1909, in Dublin, Bacon saw and expressed the most gruesome aspects of the century. Two world wars, a plague, genocide, atomic bombs, mustard gas, famine, hell on earth. And while each of these objects may not be represented in his paintings in their physical nature, their respective impacts are felt. Bacon was an intelligent man, to be sure, but he is not an intellectual painter. More of a poet painter. One who sees and feels and paints not with his brain, but with his heart.
After a few go arounds in the exhibition, Yasmin and I head out to the bustling, smog filled avenue that is Paulista. Umbrella’s bobbed overhead, traffic roared, sirens blared. The São Paulo metropolis now abuzz with an immeasurable amount of human activity. Flashes of screams, strokes, mangled faces and geometric lines infiltrate many of my thoughts, obtrusively, insistently like instant snapshots from a tragic hallucination. The images stamped onto the mind like a mental tattoo. What I mean to say is: Bacon was everywhere. Like a child who leaves the theatre imagining himself the superhero, I imagined seeing our lovely world that is at once a hellscape and utopia in the eyes of the mad Irish painter. And in some cases, this may be a terrible thing.
But there are those of us that will still be tortured anyway, no doubt about it. Those who run towards anguish, or despair, not because these things are unpleasant, but that these things, too, are real. To the ones who live like poets—who live equally inside the daydream and nightmare, the work of Bacon is thrilling, exalting, truthful. For the poet—one who lives with his heart and not necessarily his brain— the paintings of Francis Bacon allow us to feel the consequence of our shared doom. That among his paintings there is death and anguish, but also lots of life and humanity. It is within that experience of humanity that we should feel less alone. That we can be comfortable in our very own skin. Beleza Da Carne, indeed. Bravo, Bacon!
Judson Stacy Vereen, São Paulo, 2024.
Francis Bacon: Beleza Da Carne is on view at MASP from March 22-July 28.