Francis Bacon, ‘Man and Beast’, Royal Academy, Jan — Apr ‘22
The Francis Bacon ‘Man and Beast’ exhibition at the Royal Academy leaves you with a strong, visceral mark, as if you’ve been through a tumble dryer of assault. During the exhibition you can feel your body being re-arranged but your eyes cannot look away. Room upon room of arresting (and stomach curdling) paintings that are all underlain by a dismal view of human nature. If the purpose of art is to invoke an emotional response then it has certainly succeeded, although if the purpose is beauty then the outcome is more uncertain. Generally, I look to leave an exhibition with a different sense of the world, with thought and feeling knocked onto a slightly different course, and this exhibition certainly achieved this.
The exhibition focused on Bacon’s paintings that intertwine humans and animals (beasts), animals here being the instinct driven primitive nature type, as opposed to the cute and fluffy kind. Some are purely mythical beasts with horns or based on ‘Furies’ from Greek mythology. The beast paintings included disconcerting creatures with some recognition of humanity, and the more human forms had animal resonances whether in stance, stature or in the emphasised aspects of each painting. The exhibition curation included the context that Bacon was interested in big game animals in his youth, which included animals observed during a childhood trip to Africa. A reference was also made to Bacon’s childhood in Ireland where he grew up on a farm surrounded up horses. The curation linked Bacon’s paintings, his sexual desires, and his captivation with big, muscular game animals. It was clear that Bacon felt humans are very close to animals in their drives.
Some of the paintings which most struck me had black backgrounds and white linear markings as if the forms were in cages. The forms are often alone in each painting, looking isolated and backed into a corner, leading to the irruption of anger and aggression. This felt like it had parallels with the Russian war; and how the encroachment of NATO and the possibility of Ukraine joining the alliance led Putin to feel backed into a corner and brought out his aggression and order for Russia go on the offensive. It also feels like how I / we can call feel when that we feel threatened. The black background and cages, with most of the paintings containing sole figures, suggests Bacon sees us as all as ultimately being alone. Themes of warmth, connection and kindness were glaringly absent. Bacon famously expressed that he painted the ‘brutality of fact’.
One of the benefits of comprehensive exhibitions such as this, is that it feels possible to get under the ‘world view’ of the artists through the subject matter, colour and execution. The underlying message of the paintings in ‘Man and Beast’ is primarily one of nihilism. The man / beast hybrids all exhibit lust, anger, greed that give rise to an atmosphere of violence. It feels like Bacon is suggesting there is very little to distinguish man and beast, and conveys how we disguise ourselves under a cloak of civility by his use of human accessories such as umbrellas. In Bacon’s world there is no meaning, we are just pushed along by Freud’s pleasure principle. It is sad that this must have been a reflection of Bacon’s inner world and external relationships.
Bacon’s lover George Dyer is depicted in one painting as a horned large creature on its hind legs.
There is a strong sense of pathos in the above painting of Bacon’s lover, George Dyer, beast like on the couch. Bacon and his Dyer were known to engage in a sado-masochist relationship, and in the above painting it seems that Dyer cannot bear the relationship and cannot face up to it. In the painting there is a white taping across the foreground as if the remorseful lover is an exhibit in a zoo. The zoo is one of animal nature, in which Dwyer cannot control himself and hates him for not being able to do so. Again, it seems part of a recurring Bacon theme of the rule and power of instinct, even when that might go against one’s better judgement.
One of the few paintings with clear recognisable human activity is the one above with cars on the horizon. They seem far removed from the suffering of the dog in the foreground, who seems to be parched in the desert-like hot and arid atmosphere of the painting. Under certain conditions, at certain times, the people in cars might also suffer in a sub-human way, but it’s like the indifferent cars on the horizon prefer to not acknowledge this. Currently, they aren’t particularly suffering, just on their way from A to B, and they speed past the suffering dog without an intention to help. Indeed to them, it might seem that the suffering isn’t even valid because it’s only a dog. One cannot help but think of the complicit bystander finding the path of least resistance in walking on by, and in this painting it feels that Bacon is communicating that he felt that was the nature of human help.
However, something in the exhibition paintings’ content of rage, anger and instinct did resonate. For example, even with the snarling ‘fury’ image in the middle triptych of the latter ‘three figures at the base of a crucifixion’, the urge to obliterate and destroy had felt familiar. But again and again, the lack of humanism or any sense of connection kept on impressing itself upon me. The forms at the centre stage in each painting making it seem as if there is no scope for anything else. A more accurate representation within the triptych might be a more human like form with subsequent forgiveness and encapsulated in human ambivalence.
Despite Bacon’s dismal world view it doesn’t seem like he explicitly caused harm to others. He seemed to live a very chaotic life often found gambling and in Soho drinking dens. The lifestyle he maintained suggested Bacon wasn’t particularly interested in positive self-development which counteracts the instincts expressed in the paintings.
Overall, I found Bacon to be a genius painter with works of startling originality, an ability to shine a light upon a real aspect of human nature and excellent technical execution. A way that I work out my own views is usually in opposition to others, and as his paintings are uncompromising in their position, I have definitely clarified my own views of the world.
