Bacon
Category: Books,Arts & Photography,Architecture
Bacon Details
About the Author Rudy Chiappini has been director of the Modern Art Museum in Lugano for almost twenty years. In 1993 he was commissioner of the first posthumous exhibition dedicated to Bacon. Read more
Reviews
This book is the catalogue for a recent Bacon exhibition held at the Palazzo Reale in Milan, Italy.It is divided into four initial essays, the first studying the force and energy that exhude from Bacon's paintings (the violent presence of the flesh, the obsession with life, "the drama of the existencial experience"), the second dwelling on Bacon's creative process, the sources and references he used (contrary to what was formerly believed and to what the artist wanted us to believe, he left little space to chance in his works), the third focusing on his small portraits as embodiements of Bacon's ideas of what art should be (key words here are "energy" and "force")and the fourth attempting an explanation of what these paintings, through their violence and crudeness, represent (what kind of reality, beyond the mere dissolving image of the human body). This last chapter is buttressed by many quotations from Bacon's famous interviews with David Sylvester where he stresses the crude truth that, above all, the human body is "meat, a river of flesh".Then comes the main asset of this book: the reproductions of the works. I own more than a dozen books on Bacon and, in my opinion, this one is the best as far as the quality of reproductions is concerned. They are simply outstanding and cannot be more faithful to the originals. All in full color (which is crucial when you are dealing with Bacon, who was one of the greatest colorists in XXth century art)they are also numerous.The last part of the book is especially interesting in that it focuses on Bacon's studio (faithfully reconstituted at Dublin City Gallery the Hugh Lane in Ireland) and everything that was found in it after his death. Photos of the studio and reproductions of sketches, torn photographs, well-thumbed books and odds and ends that used to strew the studio floor are especially revealing of the importance of what the artist called "the chaos" in his creative process.A high-quality book which I strongly recommend.