June 29
Dialogue with Europe
"I am working for myself. . . I have nobody to excite but myself. - Francis Bacon

Francis Bacon's studio

Francis Bacon's studio

Assignment Due: Community #1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At Five in the Afternoon

Robert Motherwell. At Five in the Afternoon. 1949.
http://imgs.sfgate.com/c/pictures/2003/08/29/dd_legion_1.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Garcia Lorca

Federico Garcia Lorca
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garcia_Lorca
Garcia Lorca poem, "Lament for Ignacio Sanchez Mejias"
Lorca wrote the poem to lament the death of his
bullfighter friend
 
Three symbolic colrs in the poem:
Red = blood
White = blinding light of the sun
Black = death
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Elegy 110

Robert Motherwell.  Elegy to the Spanish Republic 110.

Allusions to the Spanish struggle and culture in Motherwell's series:
Reference to bullfighting in the abstract image of a bull's genitalia (probably inspired by Guernica)
Rounded forms pressed against weighty dark bars symbolizes the struggle for democracy & freedom
Dramatic sense of tension throughout the compositons
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Elegy 34

Robert Motherwell. Elegy to the Spanish Republic, No. 34. 1953 -54.
http://www.artinthepicture.com/paintings/view.php?nr=2900

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Historic Context

Joseph McCarthy

Library of Congress.  Senator Joseph McCarthy.  1954.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Joseph_McCarthy.jpg
 
1950 - 53 Korean War - America combats the global expansion of Communism with inconclusive results
1950 - 1957 "McCarthy Era" - Senator Joseph Mc Carthy leads wide scale attack hoping to reveal and discredit Communists in America
1951 J.D. Salinger publishes The Catcher in the Rye
1952 Arthur Miller's The Crucible
1952 - 1960 "Eisenhower Era"
1954 William Golding publishes The Lord of the Flies
1954 - 1955 J. R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings series published
1955 Polio vaccine introduced to the public
  Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat on a bus for a white man
1957 Soviet Union launches first artificial satelite, Sputnik into space
1958 - 1960 The Great Leap Forward, an attempt by Mao Zedong to stimulate China's economic development with the creation of huge rural communes was a failure and was partially responsible for an enormous famine in which several million people died.
1959 Fidel Castro overthrows Batista's regime in Cuba and establishes communist government
  Vietnam War begins

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

L'art Informel
a.k.a. Tachisme = french for stain

It's All in the City

Wols. It's All in the City.  1947.

 
Characterized by:
Spontaneous brushwork, drips, blobs and calligraphic scribbling
Suggested the body, or the presence of it
Existential consciousness
 
 
American critics saw European art of the 40s and 50s as bound and restricted by the tradition of belle peinture = the idea of the painting as being a beautiful and luxurious object, a bed of delight for the senses

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

l'informe = anti form

Georges Bataille
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Georges_Bataille_11.jpg
 
Bataille called for the embrace of the repellent, the excessive and the bodily in art
Countered the idealism he saw in Cubism and Surrealism
 
"Man goes constantly in fear of himself. His erotic urges terrify him."  - Bataille
"Pleasure only starts once the worm has got into the fruit, to become delightful happiness must be tainted with poison." - Georges Bataille

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Like the Abstract Expressionists, Wols internalized the tragic nature of his times.  His art was suffused with romantic self-pity, primordial longings, inchoate gestures." - David Hopkins

La Metafisyx

Jean Dubuffet. La Metafisyx. 1950.
Hopkins,David. After Modern Art 1945 - 2000. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jean Dubuffet. Large Sooty Nude. 1944.
L'art brut, a.k.a. art brut = art in the raw
Art made by untrained people
Mentally ill, children, amateurs, graffiti artists

"The female body…has long…been associated with a very specious [false or phony] notion of beauty which I find miserable and most depressing. Surely I am for beauty, but not that one…I intend to sweep away everything we have been taught to consider-without question- as grace and beauty [and to] substitute another and vaster beauty, touching all objects and beings, not excluding the most despised." - Jean Dubuffet

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jean Dubuffet. Childbirth. 1944.
http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?criteria=O%3AAD%3AE%3A1633&page_number=7&template_id=1&sort_order=1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sacco

Alberto Burri.  Sacco H8.  1953.
Hopkins,David. After Modern Art 1945 - 2000. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Sacco 5P

Alberto Burri.  Sacco 5P.  1953.
http://www.studiosoft.it/images/ArtsBurri1.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Concetto Spaziale

Luciano Fontana.  Concetto Spaziale.  1959 - 60.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Francis Bacon
1919 - 1992

 

Self-Portrait

Francis Bacon.  Self-Portrait. 1969.
http://slowmuse.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/francis-bacon.jpg

Bacon in his studio

Purchased at auction by Damien Hirst
in 2007 for $33,081,000

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bacon's recurrent imagery:

Painting

Francis Bacon. Painting. 1946.
http://www.artquotes.net/masters/bacon/bacon_painting1946.jpg
Tubular framed furniture
Flayed beef - hanging as though crucified
Open mouthed figure with monstrous teeth
Umbrella obscuring the figure's eyes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Furniture and rugs designed by Bacon and Self-portrait, 1973.
Ficacci, Luigi. Bacon. Koln: Taschen, 2003.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Head Surrounded by Sides of Beef

Francis Bacon. Head Surrounded by Sides of Beef. 1954.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Study After Velazquez

Francis Bacon. Study After Velazquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X. 1953.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Battleship Potemkin

Diego Velazquez. Pope Innocent X. 1650.

Sergei Eisenstein. Still from
Battleship Potemkin. 1925.