Francis Bacon at the Tate Britain

(Disclaimer: These are my thoughts on the Francis Bacon show that I saw. Not to worry if you find it the ramblings of a spectator. Feel free to bi-pass.)

When I came to London to visit in August prior to moving here, I saw an ad for a Francis Bacon retrospective at the Tate and knew I had to see it when I got here. It was amazing! There are a few of his pieces at the Met and MoMA, but to see them all organized was really awesome, and I wish other people could come and see it (it runs until January 4th, so if anyone plans on a visit, I'll gladly fork over another 12.50 pounds to see it again). Sorry, no actual images of the paintings below because I am pretty adamant about not taking photos of paintings.

The entire show was a highlight for me, but here are some bulleted out:

• Studies of Pope Innocent X - Every artist has their obsessions, and Bacon was obsessed with Velasquez's portrait of Pope Innocent X. They didn't have the really famous one where he is sitting in front of the two meat carcasses, but the others are just as interesting. The one I liked the most was Pope 1 because the vaults in the background reminded me of the painting Shulamith by Anselm Kiefer, another painter that I love. What I really like about Bacon's portraits is that he places a constraint on the space by using 'space-frames' (his term) and flat color backgrounds, while his figures are really textured, sometimes transparent and ghost-like, which gives them an energy against this fixed space. Also, his grotesque renderings of the Pope remind me of Dante's treatment of Pope Bonafice, but what in my life do I not relate to Dante?
• I really like things done as triptychs. 
• This might just be me being a populist, but I really appreciate Bacon because he was painting his own form of realism during a period where abstract art reigned. It's not like his artwork is not cerebral, but there is something immediately gutting about his work (perhaps all the gore). It is raw, at times primitive (to me), elicits a reaction for sure. Some of his paintings are a beautiful hideous where you don't want to look at it because he does ugly so good. I like artwork that everyday people can just look at and get something from, if anything. I hate walking around art museums and people are just being esoteric and ass-holey snobs about art. Sometimes abstract art is too out there and turns people off to looking if you don't have an art history background, where Bacon is something that will make everyone react. It's bizarre walking through a sterile gallery with paintings like this on the wall. I could see if someone stared long enough it might just make them want to scream.
• The Archive Room: There was one room dedicated to Bacon's reference collections and personal notebooks. I always like things like this because you can see the artist's process. This room included photographs he used for figure studies, photos he took of his friends, books and other materials. Everything was covered in paint, and you could feel the work moving through these images. 
• The Memorial Room: This was one of my favorite rooms, and I went in not knowing what it was about. I just really loved the images in this room which were three triptychs on three walls. I thought I should read the wall note since the 40 people reading it had moved away, and my reaction to the works started to make sense. This room was dedicated to Bacon's good friend and frequent model, George Dyer, who committed suicide. I got two postcards of 2 of the triptychs here. You probably can't see it well, but here they are. It takes a real man to paint with pink and lilac, and he does it so well. He takes all the saccharine out of the color and makes it just tragic:

Triptych-August 1972 (top), Triptych-In Memory of George Dyer (bottom)

• Bacon's use of paint reminds me of Rembrandt (think of the chains he is wearing in his self-portrait at the Frick Museum), where he just globs the stuff on and it looks like intestines, ribs, bones, blood, and guts. You know what it is without it being detailed out. I paint the opposite of this way, but I think that is why I love (and envy) it, because I don't think I can do it. 
• Little mouths everywhere: In many of Bacon's paintings there are random mouths with sharp teeth in weird places. This just reminded me of a story that my friend told me about a friend they had who had a tumor on their back. When it was biopsied, they found little teeth inside of it, so they think it might have been a remnant of a twin. Completely gross and disturbing story, but that's what it reminded me of.
• Use of allusion and loving T.S. Eliot: I am into this. The Waste Land is one of my favorite poems and Bacon used it in particular in the painting dedicated to George Dyer (above). Nerd ALERT!

Anyways, here is a link to the exhibition website if you want to look further.

After going through the galleries, I went to the cafe to get a coffee and a croissant because I was on low energy and the day was really dreary so I wanted to wait till the rain let up before heading back (unfortunately it just got worse). To add to the bummers, they didn't have any croissants, but they had a tea special which included a scone, so I opted for that. How British of me to have tea and scones. 

The entire seating area was full, so I ended up sitting in the education break room at a children's table. The guy at the cashier assured me it was "very nice." It was a elementary school cafeteria, that's all I can say. I also learned I was eating my scone all wrong by the looks of this granny sitting at the table next to me. She was aghast that I had not cut my scone opened, applied my clotted cream and jam and ate. Instead I would just cut off little pieces and apply the spreads accordingly. I made a huge mess, as the scone was really crumbly, so I could see why her way would look better, but the stank stares were pretty obvious and made me feel like an oaf. Perhaps I should go to some etiquette classes for proper tea-time consumption?