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the logic of sensation
GILLES DELEUZE Translated from the French by Daniel W. Smith
This work is published with the support of the French Ministry of Culture Centre National du Livre.
Liberli • Egalilt • Fraternite
This book is supported by the French Ministry for Foreign Affairs, i pari of the Burgess programme headed for the French Embassy in London by the Insiitm Francais du Royaume-Uni. Continuum The Tower Building I I York Road London, SE1 7NX www.conlimiumbooks.com First published in France, 1!)8L by Editions de la Difference r Editions du Seuil. 2002, Francis Bacon: Ijgique de la Sensation This English translation (' Continuum 2003 This paperback edition published 2001 by Continuum All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from The British Library ISBN0 8264 6647 8 (Hardback I) 8264 71518 0 (Paperback Typeset by BookF.ns Ltd.. Royslon. Herts. Printed by Ml'C Books Ltd.. Bodmin, Cornwall
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Translator's Preface, by Daniel W. Smith Preface to the French Edition, by Alain Badiou and Barbara Cassin Author's Foreword Author's Preface to the English Edition 1 . T h e R o u n d A r e a , the R i n g The round area and its analogues Distinction between the Figure and the figurative The fact The question of "matters of fact" The three elements of painting: structure, Figure, and contour Role of the fields 2. N o t e on F i g u r a t i o n in Past F a i n t i n g Painting, religion, and photography On two misconceptions 3. Athleticism First movement: from the structure to the Figure Isolation Athleticism Second movement: from the Figure to the structure T h e body escapes from itself: abjection Contraction, dissipation: washbasins, umbrellas, and mirrors 1. Body, M e a t , a n d Spirit, B e c o m i n g - A n i m a l Man and animal The zone of indiscernibility
Contents Flesh and bone: the meat descends from the bone Pity Head. face, and meat 5. R e c a p i t u l a t i v e N o t e : Bacon's Periods a n d Aspects From the scream to the smile: dissipation Bacon's three successive periods The coexistence of all the movements T h e functions of the contour 6. P a i n t i n g a n d S e n s a t i o n Cezanne and sensation The levels of sensation Figuration and violence The movement of translation, the stroll The phcnomenological unity of the senses: sensation and rhythm 7. H y s t e r i a The bod) 1 without organs: Artaud Worringcr's Gothic line What the "difference of level" in sensation means Vibration Hysteria and presence Bacon's doubt Hysteria, painting, and the eye 8. P a i n t i n g Forces Rendering the invisible: the problem of painting Deformation: neither transformation nor decomposition The scream Bacon's love of life Enumeration of forces 9. Couples and Triptychs Coupled Figures The battle and the coupling of 27
Contents 11. T h e P a i n t i n g before P a i n t i n g . . . Cezanne and the light against the cliche Bacon and photographs Bacon and probabilities Theory of chance: accidental marks The visual and the manual The status of the figurative 12. T h e D i a g r a m The diagram in Bacon (traits and color-patches) Its manual character Painting and the experience of catastrophe Abstract painting, code, and optical space Action Painting, diagram, and manual space What Bacon dislikes about both these ways 86
13. A n a l o g y 111 Cezanne: the motif as diagram T h e analogical and the digital Painting and analogy T h e paradoxical status of abstract painting The analogical language of Cezanne and of Bacon: plane, color, and mass Modulation Resemblance recovered 14. Every P a i n t e r R e c a p i t u l a t e s the History of 122 P a i n t i n g i n His o r H e r O w n W a y . . .
Egypt and haptic presentation
Essence and
accident Organic representation and the tactile optical world Byzantine art: a pure optical world? Gothic art and the manual Light and color, the optic and the haptic 15. B a c o n ' s P a t h The haptic world and iis avatars Colorism A new modulation From Van Gogh and Gauguin to Bacon T h e two aspects of color: bright tone and broken tone, field and Figure, shores and Hows . . . 135
Rhythmic Figures
Two types of
Amplitude and the three rhythms "matters of fact"
10. N o t e : W h a t Is a T r i p t y c h ? The attendant The active and the passive T h e fall: the active reality of the difference in level Light, union and separation
manual. are widely available both online and in catalogs. The first volume contained Dcleuze's essay. I would also like to thank Philippa Hudson for her careful reading of the manuscript. and broken tones Heads and shadows Color contour Painting and taste: good and bad taste 17. (lows. to whom I owe a debt of gratitude. Images of Bacon's paintings. The paintings cited by Deleuze are designated by a number in brackets. while the second volume consisted exclusively of full-page reproductions of Bacon's paintings. and haptic The practice of the diagram . 162 173 197 vi VII . however. allowing readers to view and study the reproductions directly alongside Dcleuze's text. tactile. Regrettably. Note on Color Color and the three elements of painting Color-structure: the Gelds and their divisions The role of black Color-force: Figures.Contents 16. edited by Harry Jancovici.On "completely different" relations Michelangelo: the pictorial fact Index Notes Index of Paintings 144 Translator's Preface 154 The original French version of Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation was published in 1981 by Editions de la Difference as a two-volume set in their series La Vuc le Texte. The Eye and the Hand Digital. which refer to the chronological list of Bacon's paintings at the end of the volume. and it goes without saying that Dcleuze's book is best read with such images on hand for viewing. This translation might never have seen the light of day were it not for the tireless efforts of Tristan Palmer. it was not possible to include reproductions in the present edition.
which is to ensure the continued circulation of this great book. and who have thereby allowed us to clo our duty. but one can also paint thought. Each aspect could serve as the theme of a particular sequence in the history of painting. But this order is relative. and who is the painter? We mean: Who is thinking. including the exhilarating and violent form of thought that is painting." which is the summit of this logic. in the "coloring sensation. is this even a book " o n " Bacon? Who is the philosopher.Preface to the French Edition Gilles Deleuze's book on Francis Bacon is something other than a study of a painter by a philosopher. " we would like to express our profound gratitude to those who have made this re publication possible. And this book in particular. and to prevent at any price its disappearance from the circulation to which it is destined and which has made it pass from hand to hand among lovers of philopainting or pictophilosophy. Alain Bacliou and Barbara Cassin viii Author's Foreword Each of the following rubrics considers one aspect of Bacon's paintings. But is this a reason for us to forgo our duty. coexist in reality. in the form of a fold. in an order that moves from the simplest to the most complex. All these aspects. ix . between the visible and its nominal inverse?" We have therefore decided to republish this book in the collection " L ' O r d r c philosophic) uc. and among the perspicacious lovers of the equivalence. of course. Moreover." in which the function of every book is to create disorder. and is valid only from the viewpoint of a general logic of sensation. We said to ourselves: "No doubt it will be impossible to match the splendor of the lirst edition. For the disorder that makes up one of the most beautiful books of our " O r d r e . and who looking at thought? One can certainly think painting. Too many things will be missing in the register of the visible. They converge in color.
This is the relationship not of form and matter. forming a hollow volume. and what fascinates him are the invisible forces that model flesh or shake it. a sen-am rent from us by a foreboding of invisible forces: "to paint the scream more than the horror . but its effect on an immobile body: heads whipped by the wind or deformed by an aspiration. but of materials and forces making these forces visible through their effects on the flesh. shutting the door with the tip of" its foot. before anything else. of the urge to vomit. to be sure. There is. a bone structure. To make the spasm visible. What fascinates Bacon is not movement. crucifixions. Bacon. prostheses and mutilations. It often seems that the flat fields of color curl around the Figure. a static or potential violence. But if these fields Author's Preface to the English Edition' Francis Bacon's painting is of a very special violence. Figures are made of flesh. or crossed by tubes or very thin rails. These large shores arc themselves divided into sections. . . but ordinary bodies in ordinary situations of constraint and discomfort. twisting itself on a stool). " In the end. .Author's Preface to the English Edition however linn. determining a curve. . descends from the bones. They form an armature. or sliced by a band or largish stripe. or with only the kind (A' shallow depth that characterizes post-cubism. the flesh. The violence of a hiccup. together constituting a shallow depth. detours that the artist himself judges severely and condemns in his work. monsters. ii (ails or tends i > < fail away from them (hence those flattened sleepers who keep one arm raised. an isolating track or ring at the core of which the Figure enacts its small feats vomiting in a sink. For example. a violence of reaction and expression. This kind of situation finds its equivalent only in theater. it is pity. or the raised thighs from which the flesh seems to cascade). but also all the interior forces that climb through the flesh. heads. What directly interests him is a violence that is involved only with color and line: the violence of a sensation (and not of a representation). . involuntary smile Bacon's bodies. But these are overly facile detours. The entire body becomes plexus. Sometimes they are like a ship's rigging. including the flesh of dead animals There is another clement in Bacon's painting: the large fields of color on which the Figure detaches itself . or in a Beckett novel such as Le De'peupleur "inside a flattened cylinder The light . suspended in the sky of the field of color. but instead draw life from one another. it is not a taste for horror. A man ordered to sit still lor hours on a narrow stool is bound to assume contorted postures. Its yellowness" 2 or else it is found in visions of bodies plunging in a black tunnel [44 j. x \i . upon which the Figure executes its taunting acrobatics.fields without depth. but also of a hysterical. often traffics in the violence of a depicted scene: spectacles of horror. an intense pity: pity lor the flesh. These two pictorial elements do not remain indifferent to one another. a force of inertia that is of the flesh itself: with Bacon. If there is feeling in Bacon. Bacon's Figures are not racked liodies at all.
Author's Pre/ace to the English Edition of color press toward the Figure. on the contrary. and by inventing new colors for the flesh that are "far from nature" . The Figures themselves always present scrubbed zones and blurred ones which attest to this dissipation. dust. Bacon is a very great coiorist. The other aspect. of the Gelds of color toward the Figure. This would be Bacon's path: where these zones of proximity are induced either by sections of fields of color. And this occurs not only in Bacon's sinks. since the ground could not be allowed to remain inert. coupled with a procedure of rupturing or "lireblasting. coupled with a program of intensification." a critical mixture of complementaries. brilliant monochrome fields that take life not in variations of hue. Cezanne's "solution" . is an abstraction which is purely Bacon's. The first aspect has not ceased to inspire experiments in modern painting: those great. exaggerated point. the colors of the flesh. It is as though Bacon has reassumed the entire problem of painting after Cezanne. two most importantly one of which corresponds to the Figure/flesh. but in very subtle shifts of intensity or saturation determined by zones of proximity. a jet of water [82]. was to be resolved by Bacon along lines that Gauguin presaged: by producing broken tones [tons romfms]. 88. and of the Figure toward the fields. These two aspects are strict correlates in Bacon: a brilliant. Bacon's genius as a Coiorist exists in both of these ideas at once. as though baked in a furnace and flayed by fire. "the portrait through color. This new period. the Figure in turn presses outward. Or else.basically a modulation of color by means of distinct touches that proceed according to the order of the spectrum in effect gave birth or rebirth to two problems: how. we can speak of a few paintings still rare with Bacon . color is related to many different systems. or grass [see 86. of vapor. As of 1978 9. on the one hand. while on the other hand also preserving the specificity or singularity of a form in perpetual variation? This was the new problem for Van Gogh as much as for Gauguin . while most modern painters have concentrated on the first. to disgorge itself through a tip or a hole. or of the scream: the entire body trying to escape. it will flatten itself and stretch itself into a thick mirror." by restoring to the background vast monochrome fields that are carried toward infinity. but through his famous umbrellas which snatch part of the Figure and which have a prolonged. leaving a trace or a geyser. sand. Van Gogh and Gauguin rediscovered the art of the portrait. and which rival ceramics.a problem with two pressing dangers. broken tones for the flesh. to preserve the homogeneity or unity of the background as though it Author's Preface to the English Edition were a perpendicular armature for chromatic progression. like vampires: the entire body trying to flee. trying to pass and dissolve through the fields. 97]. or by virtue of a white stretched band or large stripe which crosses the field (an analogous structure can be found in Barnett Newman).in which the Figure has in effect disappeared. to flow out of itself. which seems so rich in possibilities for the future.colors that seem to have been baked in a kiln. and the other to the color field/section. lodging its entirety into this width until it separates and dissipates like a lump of fat in a bowl of soup. It consummates the double motion. pure tone for the large fields. It is as though painting Xlll \n . And with him. Already we have here the role of the spasm. nor could the form become murky or dissolve into grisaille.
and another Figure whose torso has been completed.Author's Preface to the English Edition were able to conquer time in two ways: through color . each distributes rhythms. for his part. It is in the triptychs that colors become light. of painting altogether. removing value). these are rhythms and nothing else. But from the point of view of the Figures themselves. truly distinct. The abandonment of simple figuration is the general fact of Modern painting and. It is the confrontation of the Figure and the field. their solitary wrestling in a shallow depth. contracting. and that light divides itself into colors. figuration obtains only the bogus violence of the represented or the signified. one of crescendo or simplification climbing. that Bacon should revive the triptych: in this format he finds the conditions for painting and for color exactly as he conceives them to be. Yet Bacon also links these sections with a kind of brutal." If one keeps in mind the development of the triptych. Let us consider every Bacon triptych: in any given case. It was natural. not expressionism. In Author's Preface to the English Edition them. and that the field separates and unites them. not cubism. then one can return to the simple paintings. this or that object possessing rhythm. diastolic. rhythms and rhythms alone become characters. systolic." but whose leg is already complete. even necessary. On the contrary. Rhythms are the only characters. of a piece. one discovers rhythm as the essence of painting. which makes you hear "rhythmic characters. breaks with figuration: it is not impressionism. of the act of painting. where is the adjunctive or the reductive Figure? A 1972 Triptych [70] shows a Figure whose back is "diminished. where is the attendant-Figure. which in advance negate any narrative that would establish itself among them. of all time. What a triptych's three panels distribute in various ways is analogous to three basic rhythms one steady or ••attendant" rhythm. that each already encompasses a triptych. not abstraction Never (except perhaps in the case of Michelangelo) has anyone broken with figuration by elevating the Figure to such prominence. These are monsters from the point of view of figuration. rhythms as in a piece of music. still more. and two other rhythms. When narrative or symlx>lic. and this way Bacon has of effecting relationships between painting and music. at least three. where bodies fall or go through their paces. xiv XV . and in another way as passage. expanding. For it is never a matter of this or that character. that rips the painting away from all narrative but also from all symbolization.as eternity and light in the infinity of a held. The triptych has thoroughly separate sections. But what is interesting is the way in which Bacon. as metabolic variability in the enactment of these bodies. The triptych's function is precisely to this point to make evident that which might Otherwise risk remaining hidden. not symbolism. superposes them. as though so many figures resonating in the field. It is a Chronochromie. in the spirit in which the composer Olivier Messiaen named one of his works. adding value). the other of diminuendo or elimination [descending. as in the music of Messiaen. it expresses nothing of the violence of sensation in oilier words. become objects. but who is missing one leg and whose other leg runs. in their flesh and on their skin (thus three large male backs with varying chasms in value [63]). unifying distribution that makes them interrelate in a way that is free of any symbolic undercurrent. the only Figures. No doubt one would see that each of them is organized as though a triptych.
and contour Role of the fields A round area often delimits the place where the person that is to say. Figure. There are other techniques of isolation: putting the Figure inside a cube. the painting is composed like a circus ring. inside a parallelepiped of glass or ice [6. 37] or occupy the center of a triptych [60. It can be dispersed in the small disks that surround a part of the person's body. or rather. Even the two peasants in Two Men Working in a Field [66] form a Figure only in relation to an awkward plot of land. It is often duplicated.Chapter 1 The Round Area. 55]. or even replaced. doubled over. a kind of amphitheater as "place. by the roundness of the chair on which the person is seated. 61]. or in the gyratory spirals that encircle the bodies. Ibis round or oval area takes up more or less space: it can extend beyond the edges of the painting [64.The question of "matters of fact" . or in some other position. In short. lying down. the Ring The round area and its analogues Distinction between the Figure and the figurative The fact . the Figure . tightly confined within the oval of a pot.The three elements of painting: structure. or by the oval of the bed on which the person is lying." It is a verysimple technique that consists in isolating the Figure. sticking it onto a rail or a stretch-out I .is seated.
A story always slips into. The figurative (representation) implies the relationship of an image to an object that it is supposed to illustrate.Francis Bacon bar. With modesty. an exploration of the Figure within the place. although this relationship has nothing narrative about it [55. . 62. through extraction or isolation. or upon itself. or combining all these means the round area. 1 Isolating the Figure will be the primary requirement. The relation of the Figure to its isolating place defines a "fact": "the fact is . the Ring specific object to each of them. and the bar as in Bacon's strangely flared and curved armchairs [38]. an Icon. the Figure becomes an Image. and that this is still the task of the painting of the future: Of course. the space between two figures in order to animate the illustrated whole. illustrative. if he or she opts for the second path. 66]. or toward the purely figural. Bacon acknowledges that classical painting often succeeded in drawing this other type of relationship between Figures. necessary though not sufficient. the cube. as if on the magnetic arc of an infinite circle [62]. It thus has two possible ways of escaping the figurative: toward pure form. despite the subtlety of their combinations.-' Isolation is thus the simplest means. and nonillustrative relationships between the Figures and the fact? Coupled Figures have always been a part of Bacon's work. or tends to slip into. " "what takes place is " Thus isolated. but the Figure itself is isolated in the painting by the round area or the parallelepiped. and not only does the triptych have three isolated panels (which above all must not be united in a single frame). and of course every painter longs to do that But the story that is already being told between one figure and another begins to cancel out the possibilities of what can be done with the paint on its own. to disrupt narration. If the painter keeps to the F'igure. but it also implies the relationship of an image to other images in a composite whole which assigns a The Round Area. 61. to liberate the Figure: to stick to the fact. . render sensible a kind of progression. through abstraction. Not only is the painting an isolated reality. and from which no figuration would follow? Diverse Figures that would spring from the same fact. Painting has neither a model to represent nor a story to narrate. Clearly the problem is more complicated than this. on the contrary. . Narration is the correlate of illustration. so many of the greatest paintings have been done with a number of figures on a canvas. The important point is that they do not consign the Figure to immobility but. Moreover. and narrative character the Figure would necessarily have if it were not isolated. Is there not another type of relationship between Figures. that would belong to one and the same unique fact rather than telling a story or referring to different objects in a figurative whole? Nonnarrative relationships between Figures. Why? Bacon often explains that it is to avoid the figurative. there is a relationship of great intensity between the separate panels of a triptych. one that would not be narrative. It is an operative field. 38]. to break with representation. to escape illustration. These arc all "places" [lieux]. In any case. it will be to oppose the "figural" to the figurative. And this is a 2 3 . but they do not tell a story [60. Bacon docs not hide the fact that these techniques arc rather rudimentary.
they are already preparing for the great technique of local scrubbing [nettoyage local] with a rag. handbroom. or without interest. equally close. It occupies only a part of the painting. when one moves from the Figure to the ficldjs of color. by virtue of their autonomy.7 At this stage. but are strictly to the side of it. As for the textures. What fills the rest of the painting will be neither a landscape as the correlate of the Figure." 3 What is this other type of relationship. But at any moment somebody will come along and be able to put a number of figures on a canvas. there is no relation of depth or distance. inside a circle or parallelepiped. no incertitude of light and shadow. this I 5 . Thin and hard. bed. for Bacon. landscape-Figures like the Van Gogh of 1957 [23]. in which the thickness is spread out over a nonfigurativc zone. A Figure is isolated within a ring. In fact. 1953 [14]. the rest of the painting is systematically occupied by large fields [aplats] of bright. They are not beneath. Bacon had already conquered this domain. the dark. or sofa. For Bacon's landscapes The Round Area. 1952 [8]. and the blurry. they are apt to " m a k e " a landscape or to " m a k e " a ground. to a large degree. as in Figure in a Landscape 1945: | 2 | and Figure Study I 1945 (i | 4 | : there are thicknesses and densities like those of Head II (1949) [5]. 1954 [17]). uniform. the thick. Study of a Baboon. and are thus grasped in a close vicw. a thickness of color on which shadows would play. Even the shadows and the blacks are not dark ("I tried to make the shadows as present as the Figure"). asignifying traits*' that are devoid of any illustrative or narrative function: hence the importance of grass. a texture on which variation would play. Even if we acknowledge that. before Bacon returned to the "clear and precise. Study of a Figure in a Undscape. Clearly these two techniques of local scrubbing and asignifying traits belong to an original system which is neither that of the landscape. 1952 [9]. and the tonal.Francis Baton very great difficulty. or brush. nor a formless chiaroscuro. We arc still at the simple aspect of isolation. Yet we are moving ahead too quickly. // is the correlation of two sectors on a single plane. or even to " m a k e " darkness). these fields have a structuring and spatializing function. there are extremely shaded textures. What then fills the rest of the painting? A certain number of possibilities are already annulled. For there are indeed. upon a chair. was dominated by the somber." 5 But destiny can sometimes pass through detours that seem to contradict it. a relationship between coupled or distinct Figures? Let us call these new relationships matters of fact. If the fields function as a background. and the irremediably grassy character of these landscapes (Landscape. and above all. in Bacon's early works. This correlation. the Ring are a preparation for what will later appear as a set of short "involuntary free m a r k s " lining the canvas. Two Figures in the Grass. the dark. just as the Figure itself is. nor a ground from which the form will emerge. or rather. nor that of the formless or the ground (although. all around it. he did so under more complex aspects than those we have yet considered.* as opposed to intelligible relations (of objects or ideas). according to Sylvester. or beyond the Figure. they do so by virtue of their strict correlation with the Figures.-'a tactile or "haptic" view. there is that alleged period of ten years which. behind. and motionless color.
and it is their very mechanical precision that stands opposed to their legibility. is itself provided by the place. Byzantine art. or the treatment of crumpled newspapers: as Leiris says. some pools. which are the material structure.'"' as in the man with the pig's head in the SelfPortrait of 1973 [72]. This is what Bacon says in a very important statement to which we will frequently recur. which encloses space. of the field that functions as a ground. and the people who emerge from the pools on the way to their "daily round. by the ring or round area. He distinguishes three fundamental elements in his painting.Francis Bacon connection. It is this system. which would move along the armature together with the pedestal. the blur is obtained by the techniques office marks or scrubbing. there are even two kinds of blurriness. this co-precision. the dark. and the Figure that functions as a form. we would say: a sidewalk. the round contour. both of which arc also among the precise elements of the system. and the Figure. but they both belong to this highly precise system. we would have to say: the armature. This is why there is indeed a certain blurriness in Bacon.) 6 7 . If we had to illustrate them (and to a certain degree this is necessary. which constitutes an absolutely closed and revoking space. as in the Man with Dog of 1953 [15]). their typographic characters The Round Area. In the first case. 1 " In the other case. the pedestal. much more so than if one had proceeded with the somber. (We will see that there is yet a third case. But what concerns us here is this absolute proximity. the blur is obtained not by indistinctness. which is the common limit of the two. which would be mobile. their contour. this coexistence of two immediately adjacent sectors. but on the contrary li\ the operation that "consists in destroying d a r k ) l>\ clarity. on a single plane thai is \ iewetl at close range. and the raised image. or the indistinct.*'" We will see later what the various elements of this system have to do with Egyptian art. and so forth. If we think in sculptural terms. the Ring are clearly drawn.
or doubled over. 1 Yet it is by no means certain that these two ideas. though instantaneous. infernal. painting used to be conditioned by certain "religious possibilities"' that still gave. and even Hell lines. Consider an extreme example: El Greco's The Burial of the Count oj'Orgaz (1586-8) [106]. the Virgin. With God but also with Christ. The photograph. Second. or contorted. has a completely different ambition than representing. freed from all figuration. outside all constraint. a total emancipation: the Figures are lifted up and elongated. so that modern painting no longer needs to fulfill this function. and notably elongation. the link between the pictorial element and religious sentiment. such activities are in competition with each other. But Bacon invokes two developments which seem to indicate that modern painting has a different relation to figuration or illustration than the painting of the past has. and enter directly into relation with an order of celestial sensations.a pictorial meaning lo figuration. Thus. and photography misconceptions On two illustrating. whereas modern painting is an atheistic game. where the count is received by Christ. In the lower half. and of the relationships between photography and painting. And when Bacon speaks of his own use of photographs. or narrating. and movements are freed from the demands of representation. there is indeed a figuration or narration that represents the burial of the count. They no longer have anything to represent or narrate.Note on Figuration in Past Painting Chapter 2 Note on Figuration in Past Painting Painting. The Figures are lifted up. A horizontal divides the painting into two parts: upper and lower. taken from Malraux. in past painting. On the one hand. This is what Christian painting had already discovered in the religious sentiment: a properly pictorial atheism. First. in turn seems poorly defined by the hypothesis of a figurative function that was simply sanctified by faith. 8 9 . are adequate. religion. although all the coefficients of bodily deformation. photography has taken over the illustrative and documentary role. there is no longer a story to tell. But in the upper half. they no longer have to do with anything but "sensations" celestial. It is hard to imagine an activity that would take over a function relinquished by a superior art. refined without measure. in themselves. or Painting has to extract the Figure from the figurative. he has much more profound things to say. where one could adhere literally to the idea that God must not be represented. are already at work. which still burdened earlier painters. since in this domain they are content to refer to the existing code of the Church. and one art would never be content to assume a role abandoned by another. Despite appearances. there is a wild liberation. the Figures arc relieved of their representative role. colors. On the other hand. celestial and terrestrial.
" It is just the opposite. Having renounced the religious sentiment. On the contrary. while the dog. which sends the stigmata to St. the emergence of Figures freed from all figuration. This is exactly what Bacon says when he speaks of the photograph: it is not a figuration of what one sees. Francis. which the Saint manipulates as if they were the strings of the airplane kite. but aesthetically. Nor can we say that the renunciation of figuration was easier for modern painting as a game. the cow. which the painter will have to break with. everything is permitted. For with God." Consider two further examples. One must not say. Abstract painting attests to this difficulty: the extraordinary work of abstract painting was necessary in order to tear modern art away from figuration. the rabbits. since acts of violence and infamies always find a holy justification. it made possible a liberation of Figures. not only morally. in which the birds and the fish leave first. The entire surface is already invested virtually with all kinds of cliches. Everything is made to pass through the rode. while the hatched lines that trace the path to the stigmata are like free marks. by a fantasy in which everything is permitted." through all the "levels of different feelings. despite appearances. But is there not another path. everything is permitted. modern painting is invaded and besieged by photographs and cliches that are already lodged on the canvas before the Note on Figuration in Past Painting painter even begins to work. 1550) [109J: God is like a referee firing the gun at the start of a handicapped race. the religious sentiment is painted in all the colors of the world. Or Tintoretto's Creation of the Animals (c. but because it claims to reign over vision. Christ is transformed into a kite in the sky. In Giotto's Stiginatization of St. Francis (1297 1300) [105]. because the divine Figures are wrought by a free creative work. makes it much more difficult to break with the figuration that would seem to be its miserable reserved domain. Christ's bodyis fashioned by a truly diabolical inspiration that makes it pass through all the "areas of sensation. but besieged by the photograph. in a much more important manner. a veritable airplane. Thus we cannot say that it was religious sentiment that sustained figuration in the painting of the past. more direct and more sensible? in 11 . it is what modern man sees. it would be a mistake to think that the painter works on a white and virgin surface. and thus to reign over painting. modern painting finds itself in a situation which. "If God does not exist. and the unicorn await their turn.2 It is dangerous not simply because it is figurative.Francis Bacon terrestrial sensations. In fact. on the contrary. It is with God that everything is permitted.
T h e sole spectacle is in fact the spectacle of waiting or effort. hung on a wall or a railing. but truly achieves their unique or common fact. and the place . where it is almost a law. and is no longer content merely to intertwine the two Figures of the toreador and the bull. Within the round area. But what is happening. distinct from the Figure. but not exclusively [59]. Kven the simulacra of photographs. They arc attendants not in the sense of spectators. This is where Bacon resembles Kafka: Bacon's Figure is the great Scandal. or has already happened. and mirrors Let us return to Bacon's three pictorial elements: the large fields as a spatiali/. the F'igure is sitting on the chair. In Bacon. the Figures and their fact.Athleticism Chapter 3 Athleticism First movement: from the structure to the Figure Isolation Athleticism Second movement: from tinFigure to the structure The body escapes from itself: abjection Contraction. it is rather its color that poses problems. something is happening all the same. like a Roman legion at an amphitheater [56]. can play this role of an attendant. or is about to happen. and sometimes it even seems to be waiting for what is about to happen. and between the Figure and the field. Bacon needs the function of an attendant. The shape of the contour seems to be very simple: round or oval. or the contour. which is not a spectator but part of the Figure. If painting has nothing to narrate and no story to tell. which is Uncommon limit of the Figure and the field. as a "place. is not a spectacle or a representation. a voyeur. lying on the bed. the Figure. dissipation: washbasins. while at the same time the mauve stripe disappears. The contour is like a membrane through which this double exchange Hows. Thus the 1969 bullfight exists in two versions: in the first. even if this is its own double. a passerby. a photograph. umbrellas. the large field still includes an open panel through which we can glimpse a crowd. but the second version closes off this panel. which linked the spectators to what was still a spectacle [57]. the ring. but as a constant or point of reference in relation to which a variation is assessed. However. One discovers in Bacon's paintings an attempt to eliminate every spectator. In many cases there seems to subsist. and consequently every spectacle. the round area. Three Studies of Isabel Rawst/iorne (1967) [43] shows the Figure closing the door on an intruder or visitor. because of the dynamic double relationship in which it is caught up. The contour." is in fact the place of an exchange in two directions: between the material structure and the Figure.ing material structure. an "attendant": notably.that is. Something happens in both directions. we will see that. in the triptychs. a kind of spectator. but these are produced only when there are no longer any spectators. 12 13 . in his paintings and especially in his triptychs. these waiting Figures or "attendants" are not spectators. something which defines the functioning of the painting.
everything in Bacon reaches its culmination in the Painting of 1978 [81 j: stuck onto a panel. There is one painting that can guide us. This is no longer the problem of the place. its hands clutching the faucets.the Figure becomes a Figure only through this movement which confines it and in which it confines itself. . But the other movement. and an intense effort. and the bodyhas a place within the enclosure of the round area. is no longer on the ground but has migrated. so that the Figure seems to be standing up on the vertical door at the extreme point of the foot. the movement goes from the material structure. which obviously coexists with the first. in order to turn the key in the door with its foot from the other side of the painting. all the more singular in that the source of the movement is not in itself. in a reorganization of the entire painting. the Figure has been a body. In this attempt to eliminate the spectator. the Figure already demonstrates a singular athleticism. The body exerts itself in a very precise manner. the contour.. But the body is not simply waiting for something from the structure. It is the extreme solitude of the Figures. the field is caught up in a movement that forms it into a cylinder: it curls around the contour. to the Figure. and its effort or waiting for a spasm. or waits to escape from itself in a very precise manner.. but rather of the event. and is now situated on the door itself. it is waiting for something inside itself. the body-Figure exerts an intense motionless effort upon itself in order to escape down the blackness of the drain. from the field. around the place. Perhaps this is Bacon's approximation of horror or abjection. and the ring. From the start. the champion ol abstinence. The light. becomes an apparatus for the Figure's gymnastics on the fields of color [60). Instead. Its dimness. toward the field of color. and it envelops and imprisons the Figure. a violent comedy in which the bodily organs are prostheses. We note that the contour or the round area. Or else the place.Francis Bacon or the great Swimmer who does not know how to swim. In this respect." 1 Fither the fall is suspended in the black hole of the Athleticism cylinder ['44]: this is the first formula for a derisory athletics. a very beautiful golden orange. Inside a llattcncd cylinder fifty metres round and eighteen high for the sake of harmony. T h e material structure curls around the contour in order to imprison the Figure. If there is an effort. in short. Joseph Conrad describes a similar scene in which he too saw the image of abjection: in the !I 15 . the amphitheater. which excludes every spectator:. It is not I who attempt to escape from my body. the body is the source of movement. "Abode where lost bodies roam each searching for its lost one [de'peufileur] . the platform is the theater of Oklahoma. which accompanies the movement of all the structure's forces. Now it is inside the body that something is happening. as if it were a matter of undertaking something above and beyond the strength of the body and directed toward a separate object. is on the contrary the movement of the Figure toward the material structure. it exerts an effort upon itself in order to become a Figure. a spasm: the body as plexus. the extreme confinement of the bodies. the Figure at a Washbasin of 1976 |8()[: clinging to the oval of the washbasin. In many paintings. it is the body that attempts to escape from itself by means of. . the Figure tenses its entire body and a leg. . it is in no way an extraordinary effort. Its yellowness..
put his lips to it. . and whispered " H e l p " in an almost extinct voice. In our disturbed state we were absolutely paralyzed by his incredible action." 3 In much the same way. And the scream. In Studies of the Human Body (1970) [62] and Triptych. during a wild tempest. and a nozzle. but the crouching Figure uses it all at once as a pendulum. the Figure is clearly lodged within the round area of a balustrade. in the domain of Figures. . The contour thus assumes a new function. the "nigger" of the . but the shadow acquires this presence only because it escapes from the body. That infamous nigger rushed at the hole. In the two versions of Painting. and which has already grabbed hold of the head. trying madly to get out through that opening one inch wide and three inches long. it is William Burroughs who has best evoked this clfort of the body to escape through a point or through a hole that forms a part of itself or its surroundings: "Johnny's body begins to contract. and the second form of a derisory athletics. a parachute.Varcissus hears the other sailors who have succeeded in carving a small hole in the bulkhead that imprisons him. The entire series of spasms in Bacon is of this type: scenes of love. since it no longer lies flat. the new position ol the body in relation to the contour shows that we have arrived at a more complex aspect (even if this aspect was there from the start). and appears to be waiting to escape in its entirety through the point of the instrument: already we can no longer see anything but its abject smile. the green umbrella is treated more like a surface. Bacon's scream. In literature. but at the same time it lets itself be grabbed by the half-spherical umbrella. the shadow has as much presence as the body. It is no longer the material structure that curls around the contour in order to envelop the Athleticism figure. May-June 1974 175]. 'Whcceccecc!' the boy yell. It seemed impossible to drive him away. but outlines a hollow volume and has a vanishing point. he pressed his head to it. It is one of Bacon's paintings. Bacon's Lying Figure with Hypodermic Syringe 11963) [311 is less a nailed-down body though this is how Bacon describes it) than a body attempting to pass through the syringe and to escape Hi 17 . Each time the contraction is longer. . every muscle tense. his whole body strain to empty through his cock. It is a scene of hysteria. it is a replication of the round area. in which the body attempts to escape from itself through one of its organs in order to rejoin the field or material structure. AH the pressures of the body The bowl of the washbasin is a place. it is the Figure that wants to pass through a vanishing point in the contour in order to dissipate into the material structure. are analogues of the washbasin. through which the entire contracted body wants to pass. the shadow is the body that has escaped from itself through some localized point in the contour [63]. Bacon has often said that.Francis Bacon hermetic cabin of the ship. a vacuum cleaner. This is the second direction of the exchange. 65]." trivializes this abomination or Destiny. 2 The standard formula. 1946 and 1971 [3. But here. pulling up toward his chin. is the operation through which the entire body escapes through the mouth | 6 | . a contour. in this respect. Bacon's umbrellas. with one point stretched downwards . " T o pass through the eye of a needle. of vomiting and excreting [73]. The splendor of these umbrellas as contours.
the head is split open by a large triangular crevasse. thereby passing through or into these prostheses-instruments. a deformed and deforming movement that at every moment transfers the real image onto the body in order to constitute the Figure. in the 1973 Self-Portrait [72] of the man with the pig's head. and which are sensations and not imaginings. to the point where the instrumental deformations are immediately transferred to the Figure. sometimes stretched and dilated. the mirror or the washbasin can be localized. The heads are all prepared to receive these deformations hence the wiped. 67]. everything is inside it (63. An intense movement flows through the whole body. they no longer even need to be specified: the entire structure can play the role of a virtual mirror. scrubbed. the cube or the parallelepiped is also replicated in the mirror. what is happening in the mirror. tends to dissipate into the fields of color. 18 19 . Thus. it is the movement of the Figure going toward the structure and which. But in both these cases. If need be. in many cases. sometimes contracted and aspirated. Thus. Bacon does not experience the mirror in the sameway as Lewis Carroll. The mirror is an opaque and sometimes black thickness [45]. And to the degree that the instruments tend to occupy the whole of the material structure. The body enters the mirror and lodges itself inside it. a virtual umbrella or washbasin.Francis Bacon through this hole or vanishing point functioning as a prosthesis-organ. which constitute passages and Al hie lie ism states that are real. T h e Figure is not simply the isolated body. so the deformation is static. the umbrella and the washbasin as much as the mirror. This is because the movement is no longer that of the material structure curling around the Figure. the deformation takes place on the spot. physical. just as it contracted itself by going through the hole. and disperse the head throughout the mirror like a lump of fat in a bowl of soup [51]. 4 If the ring or the round area is replicated in the washbasin and the umbrella. flatten. What makes deformation a destiny is that the body has a necessary relationship with the material structure: not only does the material structure curl around it. or what is about to happen in the washbasin. but the body must return to the material structure and dissipate into it. which will reappear on two sides. can be immediately related to the Figure itself. Just as the effort of the body is exerted upon itself.lso the deformed body that escapes from itself. or what the washbasin heralds. The body seems to elongate. or stretch itself out in the mirror. the Figure is no longer simply isolated but deformed. at the limit. but a. but even then. itself and its shadow. is exactly what happens to the Figure. and effective. Bacon's mirrors can be anything you like except a reflecting surface. Hence the fascination: nothing is behind the mirror. or rubbed out zones in the portraits of heads). What the mirror shows.
but it is a spirit in bodily form. and does not even have a face. Meal and Spirit Chapter 4 Body. the quivering trait of a bird spiraling over the scrubbed area. is not the face. It is not that the head lacks spirit. or rather the material of the Figure. not faces. but not without the animal becoming spirit at the same time. whereas the head is dependent upon the body. individualizing and qualifying the head without a lace. the spirit of man. but rather the animal as a trail . or conversely. that pull at the head. not the structure. what Bacon's painting constitutes is a zone of indiscemibility or ""decidability between man and animal. T h e body is the Figure.point where even his most isolated Figure is 211 21 . the physical spirit of man presented in the mirror as Eumenides or Fate [77|. It is the animal spirit of man: a pig-spirit. being a body. Sometimes the human head is replaced by an animal. The deformations which the body undergoes arc also the animal trails of the head. the face lost its form by being subjected to the techniques of rubbing and brushing that disorganize it and make a head emerge in its place. Becoming-Animal Man and animal The zone of indisrernibility Flesh and bone: the meat descends from the bone Pity Head. and meat T h e body is the Figure. It does have a head. And the marks or traits of animality are not animal forms. The material of the Figure must not be confused with the spatializing material structure. In place of formal correspondences. Bacon thus pursues a very peculiar project as a portrait painter: to dismantle the face. As a portraitist. In fact. while the simulacra of portrait-faces on either side of it act as "attendants" (as in the 1976 7riptych [79] i. a dog-spirit. an animal spirit. even if it is the point of the body. K.for example. the Figure. is treated as the shadow of its master [52]. and there is a great difference between the two. rediscover the head or make it emerge from beneath the face. a buffalo-spirit. Bacon is a painter of heads. but it is not the animal as a form. a corporeal and vital breath. which is positioned in opposition to it. spatial organization that conceals the head. for example a real dog. Meat and Spirit. For the face is a structured. a bat-spirit . The shadow escapes from the body like an animal we had been sheltering. the man's shadow itself assumes an autonomous and indeterminate animal existence [73]. . Bacon pushes 'his to (IK. Man becomes animal. its culmination. because the head is an integral part of the body.1 Bacon's techniques of local scrubbing and asignifying traits take on a particular meaning here. Sometimes an animal. Conversely. It is never a combination of forms.Body. . It can even be reduced to the head. This has nothing to do with a correspondence between animal forms and facial forms. . but rather the common !'i< t: the common fact of man and animal. but rather the spirits that haunt the wiped off parts. face.
and the sleeper or addict with the hypodermic syringe [31. For both Bacon and Kafka. Meat is not dead flesh. color. but bones are only its spatial structure. Well beyond the apparent sadism. Bacon does not say. the body has bones as well. This objective zone of indiscernibility is the entire body. the flesh as the bodily material of the Figure. The same is true of the mouth and the teeth. when the flesh ceases to cover the bones. On this point he is like Soutine. but the body insofar as it is flesh or meat. what interests Bacon is the descent. precisely. it lies in his taste for painting prone Figures. the spinal column is nothing but a sword beneath the skin. but also such delightful invention. Already in the crucifixions. 1975 [78]). and the inverted head that reveals the flesh. This pictorial tension between flesh and bone is something that must be achieved. Pity the meat! Meat is undoubtedly the chief object of Bacon's pity. The body is revealed only when it ceases to be supported by the bones. We can see here the importance of the fall [chute] in Bacon's work. 58]. whose suspended spinal column seems to protrude from her flesh. The painter is certainly a 22 23 . In meat. acrobatic. 35]. the flesh seems to descend from the bones. Bacon has painted such a spinal column on a Figure doubled over in contortions (Three Figures and a Portrait. when the two exist for each other. while the bones rise up from the flesh. It manifests such convulsive pain and vulnerability. through the splendor of its colors. man is coupled with his animal in a latent bullfight. A distinction is often made between flesh and bone. 2 In a completely different context. making it seem much more vulnerable and lithe. it retains all the sufferings and assumes all the colors of living flesh. In the crucifixions of 1962 and 1965. the bones arc like a trapeze apparatus (the carcass) upon which the flesh is the acrobat. This is a feature of Bacon that distinguishes him from Rembrandt and Soutine. Meat and Spirit descend from it. Of course. If there is an •"interpretation" of the body in Bacon. Meat is the common zone of man and the beast." but rather that every man who suffers is a piece of meat. slipped into the body of an innocent sleeper by an executioner. so that the drowsy flesh seems to Body. meat. And what achieves this tension in the painting is. Thus. 3 Sometimes a bone will even be added only as an afterthought in a random spurt of paint.brands Bacon already a coupled Figure. framed by an armchair-cross and a bone-lined ring [29. but also the series of the sleeping man with raised arms [25]. the sleeping woman with vertical legs [28]. Meat is the state of the body in which flesh and boneconfront each other locally rather than being composed structurally. whose raised arm or thigh is equivalent to a bone. The athleticism of the body is naturally prolonged in this acrobatics of the flesh. we find the two sleeping twins Hanked by animal-spirit attendants in the central panel of the 1968 triptych [53]. Bacon admires the young woman in Degas's After the Bath [101]. and acrobatics. "Pity (he beasts. which are-little bones. with his immense pity for the Jew. it is a "fact. and even between things related to them." a stale where the painter identifies with the objects of his horror and his compassion. his only object of pity. his Anglo-Irish pity. their zone of indiscernibility. but each on its own terms: the bone as the material structure of the body. we can see the flesh literally descending from the bones.
This is not an arrangement of man and beast. the epiestion if he. but before the calves that died? But can one say the same thing. "exterminated and torn to pieces. . is not the head the part that is closest to the bone? Look again at El Greco or Soutine. The bone belongs to the face.in art. yet it is not at all soft. According to Bacon. a calf. we are all cattle. that they are the zone of objective indecision between man and animal? Can one say objectively that the head is meat (just as meat is spirit . his certainty that in some strange way this event concerns all of us. . we are meat. not to the head. was a dog or another animal had already occupied his thoughts since childhood. the meat (flesh on one side. politics. but he goes to the butcher's shop as if" it were a church. Bacon's own head is a piece of flesh haunted by a very beautiful gaze emanating from eyes without sockets. the novelist K. First. an insignificance almost equal to nothingness. nor a resemblance: it is a deep identity.Francis Bacon butcher. . the beast that suffers is a man. a zone of indiseernibility more profound than any sentimental identification: the man who suffers is a beast. Bacon is a religious painter only in butchers shops. 211. and that the spectator is already in the spectacle. If 1 go into a butcher shop I always think it's surprising that I wasn't there instead of the animal. the eyes. .'1 Throughout Bacon's work. . Of course. hence his living idea that even animals are part of humanity. that this discarded meat is we ourselves. and the mask itself is not a death mask. and then." and when he sees the remains of these men "thrown on the wheel" or over the balustrade. it is a block of firm flesh that has been separated from the bone: hence the studies for a portrait of William Blake [20. P. the nostrils . there is no death's-head. the snout. the horror of sacrifice he feels when he witnesses the execution of four men. with the meat as the crucified victim (the Painting of 1946 [3]). . Meat and Spirit Moritz's passages are magnificent. a "mass of ambulating flesh". the type of existence of such a being . religion. the relationship between the head and meat runs through a scale of intensity that renders it increasingly intimate. This is the reality of becoming. . Moritz described a person with "strange feelings": an extreme sense of isolation. 1 Near the end of the eighteenth century. among men. the head. What revolutionary person . we are potential carcasses. for an instant. but firm. And he pays tribute to Rembrandt for having known how to paint a final self-portrait as one s nch block of flesh without eye sockets. or elsewhere has not felt that extreme moment when he or she was nothing but a beast.'' Body. and became responsible not for the calves that died. Yet Bacon does not seem to think of the head in this manner. namely. The head is deboned rather than bony. bone on the other) is positioned on the edge of the ring or 24 25 . and to me they belong very much to the whole thing of the Crucifixion . in short. exactly the same thing. that we are all criminals.' Of all the parts of the body. and sometimes he lost himself in such sustained contemplation of the beast that he really believed he experienced. his fascination with the wounded animal. The head is of the flesh. about meat and the head. I've always been very moved by pictures about slaughterhouses and meat.
it has not yet returned to the field in order to be truly dissipated in it. as in the bloodied pillow in the Sweeney Agonisles triptych [46]. it is important to understand the affinity of the mouth. 35]. We have already seen this in the effort the Figure exerted upon itself in order to pass through the point or the hole.Francis Baton the balustrade where the Figure-head is seated [3]. involuntary marks will be necessary). It is this extreme point that will have to be reached in order to allow a justice to prevail that will no longer be anything but Color or Light. It is no longer a particular organ. as in the two preceding crucifixions [29. 26 27 . where the meat howls under the gaze of a dog-spirit perched on top of the cross. The mouth then acquires this power of nonlocalization that turns all meat into a head without a face. the entire body tends to escape from itself. red and blue [26). and even more so. a space that will no longer be anything but the Sahara. but the hole through which the entire body escapes. and to reach the point where the open mouth becomes nothing more than the section of a severed artery. Still. becoming-animal is only one stage in a more profound becoming-imperceptible in which the Figure disappears. In this becoming. through which it takes flight and descends from the cross. This is what Bacon calls the Scream. Finally. to melt into a molecular texture. and the Figure tends to return to the material structure. The scream that comes out of the Pope's mouth and the pity that comes out of his eyes have meat as their object [27]. and from which the flesh descends (here the method office. Later. Later still. in the immense pity that the meat evokes. the meat is given a head. Bacon's series of heads will assert their identity with meat. whatever its importance. with meat. fleshly rain that surrounds the head and dismantles its face beneath the umbrella [65]. Chapter 5 Recapitulative Note: Bacon's Periods and Aspects From the scream to the smile: dissipation Bacon's three successive periods The coexistence of all the movements The functions of the contour The head-meat is a becoming-animal of man. or even a jacket sleeve that is equivalent to an artery. but it is also the dense. 1 Which means that. Bacon dislikes this painting because of the simplicity of its rather obvious method: it had been enough to hollow out a mouth from solid meat. in the state it assumed when it went into the mirror on the wall. and the interior of the mouth. to be effaced on the wall of the closed cosmos. the head becomes the nonlocalized power of the meat. among the most beautiful of which are those painted in the colors of meat. But it has not yet dissolved into the material structure. the meat is itself the head. as in the 1950 Fragment of a Crucifixion [7].
namely. and the face is dismantled in favor of this smile." 4 An abominable smile. Bacon suggests that beyond the scream there is the smile. According to Bacon. almost untenable. this technique appeared frequently in Bacon's works. while the bottom of the body still remains outside the curtain. which is not to be confused with the succession of panels: the screaming mouth in the center. a dark nuanced texture. a ring or parallelepiped: we are faced with different coordinates.' 28 29 . in fact. We see everywhere the reign of the blurry [flou\ and the indeterminate. it is clear that the Figure can no longer be isolated or put inside a limit. 3 There is already a disquieting and disappearing smile in the head of the man underneath the umbrella in the Painting of 1946 [3j. as if there were an acid eating away at the body. And if one dreams of introducing an order into a triptych. effects of compression and elongation In short.1' This is what justifies Sylvester in dividing Bacon's work into three periods: the first. Bacon and Lewis Carroll meet on this single point: the smile of a cat. and finally. persisting only as if it were a mark on a striped shroud. The body escapes through the round mouth of the Pope or the nurse. in which the "maierisch" form is drawn against a curtained. the action of a depth that pulls at the form.-' Bacon is certainly being modest. as if through an artery [16. the second. the hysterical smile on the left. as Sylvester suggests. and the second version of the same man accentuates and straightens the smile [65]. to which. For a rather long period of time. 24]. he has painted smiles that are among the most beautiful in painting. in a closed bui unlimited cosmos. conventions were required that arc the opposite of those we defined at the outset. in which the precise Figure confronts the hard and bright field of color. How are we to name such a thing? Bacon suggests that this smile is '-'hysterical. This produces the effect of a progressive elongation. which brings together •be "two opposite conventions" and returns to the vivid and thin ground. and insupportable smile of the 1954 Pope [19] or of the man sitting on the bed |11]: one senses that the smile will survive the effacement of the body. while reinventing locally the effects of blurriness by striping and brushing. this is not the last word in the series of mouths. in favor of the spatial coordinates in which only the insistent smile remains. he has not yet been able to gain access. into the horizontal slats of the blind. Furthermore. a thickness on which shadows play. an abjection of a smile. that of securing the disappearance of the body. The same vertical curtain strips surround and partially line the abominable smile of Study for a Portrait 111 ]. and which fulfill the strangest function. there is the scoffing. which is opening out. and finally the third. however. a maierisch treatment. I believe (hat the 1953 triptych [13] imposes the following order. The Figure of the screaming Pope [16] is already hidden behind the thick folds (which are almost laths) of a dark. as if the body were being pulled backwards by its upper half. It would seem that during this entire period.'' Bacon's Periods and Aspects At this extreme point of cosmic dissipation. The eyes and the mouth are so completely caught up in the horizontal lines of the painting that the face is dissipated. he says. tonal background. transparent curtain: the top of the body is indistinct. the inclined and dissipated head on the right.Francis Bacon The entire body escapes through the screaming mouth. while the head and the body seem to sink into the background.
it 30 31 . But now the sand no longer retains any Figure. The Figure is dissipated by realizing the prophecy: you will no longer be anything but sand. but also abandoned. earth. an uncertain contour. Suppose the Figure had effectively disappeared. appearing as a pure Force without an object: the wind of the tempest. If we confine ourselves to the three attested periods. leaving behind only a vague trace of its Bacon's Periods and Aspects former presence. The second period had already not so much contradicted the first period as added to it. 97] must not make us rule out the possibility that this is a nascent period. The armature or material structure. the scrambled or wiped-off zone. but it is so fragile and pastelized that we sense that the world of Figures is Profoundly threatened by the new power. in the unity of a style and a creation. The sand might even reconstitute the sphinx [83]. and which are all the stronger in that they constitute a movement within this whole that is itself precise. or water. the elfects of elongation and lading are produced. independent of every definite form. as in the 1952 Study for Crouching Nude [10]. And a radiant use of pastels lies at the transition between the Figures and these new empty spaces. will now stand on its own. the eye of the hurricane. and the sidewalk. It is within this system that the operations of brushing. in a Figure that is not only isolated. or parallelepiped. At its simplest. But at the same time.or perhaps there would have been reason to distinguish a very recent fourth period. creating fiat sections and regions in space which form a free armature. There will be . retaining the disfigured elements of a sphinx that already seemed to be made of sand. The fact that we are familiar with only a few instances of this new organization in Bacon's work [86. or a drop of water T h e landscape Hows on its own outside of the polygon of presentation. which are perpetually present. but one that coexists with the others. 88. 8 grass. the position behind the curtains is combined perfectly with the position on the ring. and confused. escaping. and the contour as the limit of the two these will continue to constitute the highly precise system. the puddle. Everything (particularly the black section) is organized around the confrontation of the two adjacent blues. dust. the jet of water or vapor. stuck. which used to make the Figure emerge. Suppose the Figure no longer had only elements of dissipation. evanescent. a darkened surface. which reminds one of Turner living in a world that had turned into a steamship [110]. This is indeed the essential point: there is certainly a succession of periods.Francis Bacon Yet it is not only the third period that invents the synthesis of the two. nor does the grass. the jet of water and the field of color [82]. And the Man with Dog of 1953 [15] incorporates the three fundamental elements of painting. and at the same time will increasingly take over the structuring functions: the elements of the contour will establish more and more divisions within the field. which would be characterized by an "abstraction" that no longer has any need of the Figure. A new position of the Figure appears. and contracted. but within a scrambled whole where the Figure is nothing but a shadow. bar. and that it was no longer even content to privilege or return to this element. but there arc also coexistent aspects that accord with the three simultaneous elements of painting. the positioned Figure. T h e field will then open up like a vertical sky. the phenomena of blurriness.
which contracts the body. and even when the body is dissipated. the thickness of the mirror.a round area. but one that will curl around the contour like a cylinder. and there is a systole in the second movement. we can see the variety of its functions at the same time as the development of its form: it is first of all isolating. The structure then appears as a field of color. through the intermediary of the contour. to dissipate into the structure with a final smile. But there is already a diastole in the first movement. If we confine ourselves to the simplest element. we can see that the golden orange contour that strikes the door has all these functions. it is the curtain behind which the Figure is dissolved by joining with the structure. In the 1978 Painting [81]. 32 33 . but as a curtain where the Figure shades off into infinity. and it is a trapeze apparatus or Macon's Periods and Aspects prosthesis.Francis Bacon is difficult to comprehend the coexistence of all these movements." since it Ibices the structure to curl around the Figure. when the body extends itself in order to better close in on itself. it still remains contracted by the forces that seize hold of it in order to return it to its surroundings. cutting it oil from any natural milieu. The systole. this most closed of worlds was also the most unlimited. Everything is divided into diastole and systole. Thus. it experiences an extraordinary becoming-animal in a series of screaming transformations. one that goes from the Figure to the material structure: the contour changes. but it is thus already the "depopulator" or the "deterritorializer. because it sustains the athleticism of the Figure confined inside it. the contour (which begins as a simple circle or round area). and finally. while the diastole. and the Figure is isolated within the contour. the contour appears as an isolator . and is ready to assume all these forms. which no longer acts as a deformer. I he coexistence of all these movements in the painting is rhythm. it is still a vehicle. But it is here that a second movement. the final territory of the Figure. goes from the Figure to the structure. And yet the painting is this coexistence. Figure. In short. since it guides the little stroll of the Figure in its remaining territory. when the body is contracted in order to escape from itself. a second tension. in a completely closed world. it is a membrane. for the acrobatics of the flesh. acting as a deformer. It then acts as a deformer. when the Figure passes into it through a hole or a point. with repercussions at each level. which extends and dissipates it. and it itself tends to return to the field of color. an oval. and Contour a first movement ("tension") goes from the structure to the Figure. goes from the structure to the Figure. Given the three basic elements Structure. is brought into play. a bar or system of bars. the Figure is contracted or dilated in order to pass through a hole or into the mirror. it turns into the half-sphere of the washbasin or umbrella. and it again becomes a trapeze apparatus or prosthesis in a new sense. it has never ceased to be a membrane that assures the communication in both directions between the Figure and the material structure.
it has no faces at all. are not these obvious differences in the service sensation" and "temperament"? In other words." "temperament" . it is in the body. Sensation has one face turned toward the subject (the nervous system. The Figure is the sensible form related to a sensation. not insofar as it is represented as an object. the event). which is of the flesh. 1 And at the limit. speaking of Cezanne. it is Being-in-the-World. and acts through the intermediary of the brain. are '"'> not inscribed in what links Bacon to Cezanne. as Bacon will say in words very close to Cezanne's. gives and receives the sensation. and not in the air. But precisely. it acts immediately upon the nervous system. Sensation is what is painted. As a spectator. whereas abstract form is addressed to the head. the stroll The phenomcnological unity of the senses: sensation and rhythm There arc two ways of going beyond figuration (that is. I experience the sensation only by entering the painting. it is both things indissolubly. Color is in the body. 2 I his is the very general thread that links Bacon to Cezanne: paint the sensation. sensation is in the body. "instinct. which is closer to the bone. This was Cezanne's lesson against the Impressionists: sensation is not in the "free" or disembodied play of light and color impressions). by reaching the unity of the sensing and the sensed.'' the world as Nature 111 Cezanne versus the world as artifact in Bacon. beyond both the illustrative and the figurative): cither toward abstract form or toward the Figure. but insofar as it is experienced as sustaining this sensation (what Lawrence. very close and difficult thing to know why some paint comes across directly onto the nervous system and other paint tells you the story in a long diatribe through the brain. What is painted on the canvas is the body. Certainly Cezanne did not invent this way of sensation in painting.* " I t is a very. it is the same body which. the cliche. in >l 35 . Sensation is the opposite of the facile and the ready-made. one in the other. vital movement. record the fact. or." the place. as the phenomeno- logists say: at one and the same time I become in the sensation and something happens through the sensation. being both subject and object.Painting and Sensation Chapter 6 Painting and Sensation Cezanne and sensation The levels of sensation Figuration and violence The movement of translation. called "the appleyness of the apple"). which are treated as landscapes' versus Bacon's inverted hierarchy that dismisses still lifes and landscapes. but he gave it an unprecedented status." the spontaneous." 1 I here would seem to be only obvious differences between these two painters: Cezanne's world as landscape and still life e v e n before the portraits. on the contrary. but also of the "sensational. even the body of an apple. Or rather. etc. Cezanne gave a simple name to this way of the Figure: sensation.a whole vocabulary common to both Naturalism and Cezanne) and one face turned toward the object (the "fact. one through the other.
or in different domains. But even if we observe practically. level. And the series can be closed. Bacon constantly says that sensation is what passes from one "order" to another. Bacon himself formulates this problem. It is each painting. w lien it has a contrasting composition. one might think that each order." Hence the irreducibly synthetic character of sensation. this secondary figuration depends on l he neutralization of all primary figuration. Moreover. a s< n a m i n g Pope). and what makes up their sensing or sensed unity? A first response must obviously be rejected. the same criticism can be made against both figurative painting and abstract painting: they pass through the brain. which are very similar to Cezanne. series of Popes. and avoids the detour and boredom of conveying a story. What does Bacon mean when. they do not act directly upon the nervous system. throughout the interviews. proceeds through series: scries of crucifixions. series of selfportraits. This is theoretically impossible. that is itself a shifting sequence or series (and not simply a term in a series). as Bacon 'Iocs." "levels of feeling. the series of Rembrandt's self-portraits involves us in different areas of feeling. or area corresponds to a specific sensation: each sensation would thus be a term in a sequence or a series. but it can be open. What then. 10 All this is true." or "shifting sequences"? 8 At first. since the Figure is opposed to Bguration. and the same level? They can implement transformations of form. but different orders of one and the same sensation. In what sense Bacon is Cczannean. even more so than if he were a disciple of Cezanne. Negatively. Painting and Sensation the mouth that smiles . they do not liberate the Figure .Francis Bacon what they have in common? When Bacon speaks of sensation. when it is continued or continuable beyond the three.1' And it is true that painting. is already an "accumulated" or "coagulated" sensation. What makes up the material synthetic unity of a sensation would be the represented object. the figured thing. But it would not be true were there not something else as well." "areas of sensation. As Valcry put it. In this regard. he speaks of "orders of sensation. from one "level" to another.all because they remain at one. . Every sensation. This is why sensation is the master of deformations. as in a limestone figure. sensation is that which is transmitted directly. they do not attain the sensation.1' And positively. series of the mouth. he says two things. in different orders. each sensation. it is each sensation that exists at diverse levels. from one " a r e a " to another. each Figure. is the source of this synthetic character. several orders or domains? What arc these levels. For example. but they cannot attain deformations of bodies. as in the triptychs. the agent of bodily deformations. there can be series of simultaneity. something that is already at work in each painting. of the mouth that screams. each Figure. we will have occasion to consider later. a plurality of constituting domains. . he says that the form related to the sensation (the Figure) is the opposite of the form related to an object that it is supposed to represent (figuration). and every Figure. It is the nature of sensation to envelop a constitutive difference of level. through which each material sensation has several levels. . and especially Bacon's painting. This means that there are not sensations of different orders. which make at least three levels or orders coexist. which concerns the 36 37 . we must ask. that something is nonetheless figured (for instance.
The former is inseparable from its direct action on the nervous system. In the end. there is nothing that might cause horror.that is. it is rather the way in which the Pope himself sees nothing. or the primary figuration. the domains it traverses: being itself a Figure. I think it goes to a deeper thing: how do I feel I can make this image more immediately real to myself? That's a l l . This is because violence has two very different meanings: "'When talking about the violence of paint. for even if we presuppose an ambivalence in the Figure itself. and the scream is botched. or the bloody suitcase. the cliche). 1 don't think that's the way things work. Bacon harbors within himself all the violence of Ireland. and the curtain in front of the Pope is not only a way of isolating him.with an ambivalence of feeling. But when he passes judgment on his own paintings. "I wanted to paint the scream more than the horror. you may be expressing at one and the same time a love of the person and a hostility towards them . to which nothing visible happens. the horror is multiplied because it is inferred from the scream. and not the reverse. . of shielding him from view. the primary figuration of that which provokes a violent sensation. Sometimes he has to turn against his own instincts. the violence of war. In any case. it's nothing to do with the violence of war. even if only secondarily. it must have nothing of the nature of a represented object. Sensation is what determines instinct at a particular moment. " would refer to feelings that the Figure would experience "i relation to represented things. renounce his own experience. This is the meaning of the formula. But there are no feelings in Bacon: there are "othing but affects. " " In 'act. As soon as there is horror. Thus neutralized. in relation to a narrated story. or the head of meat. Sylvester suggests." according to the formula of naturalism. and especially the fragment of the crucifixion. and yet which manifest the power of the paint Painting and Sensation all the more. a story is reintroduced. that is. . the valencies of the sensation . that is. which would confuse the levels of sensation . and screams before the invisible. both a caress and an assault?" To which Bacon responds. and the violence of Nazism. And certainly it is not easy to renounce the horror. At one point." 1 2 When he paints the screaming Pope. . We will see how he resolves the problem.Francis Bacon inevitable preservation of a practical figuration at the very moment when the Figure asserts its intention to break away from the figurative. just as 38 39 . which are subjected to neither torture nor brutality. he rejects all those that are still too "sensational. "since you talk about recording different levels of feeling in one image . Bacon has always tried to eliminate the "sensational". It is the same with Artaud: cruelty is not what one believes it to be. A second interpretation must also be rejected." because the figuration that subsists in them reconstitutes a scene of horror. "sensations" and "instincts. the maximum violence will be found in the sealed or crouching Figures." 1 3 The violence of sensation is opposed to the violence of the represented (the sensational. . and depends less and less on what is represented. He passes through the horror of the crucifixions. the levels through which it passes. "That is too logical. the psychoanalytic hypothesis of ambivalence not only has the disadvantage of localizing the ambivalence "ii the side of the spectator who looks at the painting. thereby reintroducing a story to be told: even the bullfights are too dramatic.
such as George Dyer's 180 degree turn of the head toward Lucian Freud (42 ]. speed. but the one that fills the flesh at a particular moment of its descent. which are clue to this more profound causei. even when the contour is displaced. the movement consists less of this displacement than the amoeba-like exploration that the Figure is engaged in inside the contour. more interesting. the contour or pedestal would slide along the length of the armature so that the Figure could make its "daily round. Beckett and Bacon have never been so close. futurism. and this daily round is the kind of stroll typical of Beckett's characters: they too trundle about fitfully without ever leaving their circle or parallelepiped. and beyond sitting down. although his painting makes movement very intense and violent. which reveals a "Miipletely different problem characteristic of Bacon: the action oj invisible forces on the body (hence the bodily deformations. as in synthetic cubism. In short. It is also true that he obtains very intense and violent movements of his own [39]." The levels of sensation would really "' domains of sensation that refer to the different sense 40 II . which he has used as a subject matter. between the two movements of a contraction in one place. it is the levels of sensation that explain what remains of movement. on the contrary. which would recompose the movement synthetically in all its continuity. It is the about-face in 'turning Figure [30]. This would be the motor hypothesis. and Bacon has not abandoned the project that a mobile sculpture could achieve more easily: in this case. the end of all things seemed to lead. beyond which one finally dissipates. And in fact. In the 1973 triptych [73]. the movement of translation occurs between two spasms. it is not movement that explains the levels of sensation. I lien there would be yet another hypothesis. It is George Dyer's bicycle ride Painting and Sensation [-!•()]. Movement does not explain sensation." 1 " But it is precisely the nature of this daily round that can inform us of the status of movement in Bacon. It is true that Bacon is fascinated by the decomposition of movement in Muybridge. Ii is ihe stroll of the paralytic child and its mother clinging to the edge of the balustrade in a curious race for the handicapped [36]. or Duchamp's Nude [ 102]. hypothesis. there is sitting down. as in Man Carrying a Child 122 J or the Van Gogh [23]. The large feet of the Figures often do not lend themselves to walking: they are almost clubfeet (and the large armchairs often seem to resemble shoes for clubfeet). There is a third. to just such a point ""' Therefore. But in the end. it is explained by the elasticity of the sensation. its vis elastica. The true acrobat is one who is consigned to immobility inside the circle. The levels of sensation would be like arrests or snapshots of motion. the search for the "best" sensation (not the most agreeable sensation. More generally." a spasm. The round area or the parallelepiped that isolates the Figure itself becomes a motor. lying clown. Bacon's Figures arc often frozen in the middle of a strange stroll [68]. more Pnenomenological. at the end of his journey. which closely resembles that of Moritz's hero: "his vision was limited to the small piece of land he could see about him To him. •t is a movement "in-place. According to Beckett's or Kafka's law.Francis Bacon instinct is the passage from one sensation to another. and violence. there is immobility beyond movement: beyond standing up. contraction. or dilation). what interests Bacon is not exactly movement.
This rhythm runs through a painting just as it runs through a piece of music. It is diastole systole: the world that seizes me by Painting and Sensation dosing in around me. Must we say the same thing of Bacon. a smell. to the point where the Figure merges with the field? Could it be that Bacon's closed and artificial world reveals the same vital movement as Cezanne's Nature? Bacon is not using empty words when he declares that he is cerebrally pessimistic but nervously optimistic. with an optimism that believes only in life. Rhythm appears as music when it invests the auditory level. for example. What is ultimate is thus the relation between sensation and rhythm. which places in each sensation the levels and domains through which it passes. 57].world itself. lengthen the mouth. which is neither rational nor cerebral. and would make a multisensible Figure appear visually.1' Cezanne. and the portrait of Isabel Rawsthorne [41] causes a head to appear to which ovals and traits have been added in order to widen the eyes. and mobilize the skin in a common exercise of all the organs at once. smell it. Between a color. This power is rhythm. with his coexistent movements. a weight. in the 1976 triptych. 12 !:. But this operation is possible only if the sensation of a particular domain (here. there would be an existential communication that would constitute the "pathic" (nonrepresentative) moment of the sensation. weigh it.Francis Bacon organs. expands in order to rejoin the field. as in Soutinc's work. we touch it. hut precisely each level. but figurally optimistic. In Bacon's bullfights. the self that opens to the world and opens tlie."1 The same "temperament" as Cezanne? Bacon's formula would be: figuratively pessimistic. each domain would have a way of referring to the others. independently of the represented object they have in common.is Cezanne said. hearing. a noise. we touch the quivering of the bird plunging into the place where the head should be [79]. is the painter who put a vital rhythm into the visual sensation. . on the contrary. This is a "logic of the senses." . and as painting when it invests the visual level. cat it. it is said. which is more profound than vision. when the flat field closes in around the Figure and when the Figure contracts or. the visual sensation) is in direct contact with a vital power that exceeds every domain and traverses them all. flair the nostrils. we hear the noise of the beast's hooves [56. a touch. and each time meat is represented. a taste. The painter would thus make visible a kind of original unity of the senses. etc.
It is traversed by a wave that traces levels or thresholds in the body according to the variations of its amplitude. •Hid cruelly will be linked less and less to the representation "' something horrible. Sensation is not qualitative and qualified. gradients. can be discovered only by going beyond the organism. the lace in favor of the head). the body without organs is flesh and nerve: a wave flows through it and traces levels upon •t. No teeth. Thus the body does not have organs. and the eye This ground. It is an intense and intensive body. No belly. We know that the egg reveals just this state of the body "before" organic representation: axes and vectors. Beyond the organism. but also at the limit of the lived body. a sensation is produced when the wave encounters the forces acting on the body. for the organism is not life. exceeding the bounds of organic activity. it ceases to be representative and becomes real. or sensation the °Pposilc of the sensational). Bacon and Artaud meet on many points: the Figure is the body without organs (dismantle the organism in favor of the body. the intensive fact of the 44 i:> . painting. No larynx. but thresholds or levels. and yet nonorganic. It is immediately conveyed in the flesh through the nervous wave or vital emotion. into the night. in relation to which forms are contingent or accessory. Sensation is vibration. and will become nothing other "'an the action of forces upon the body. We can seek the unity of rhythm only at the point where rhythm itself plunges into chaos. " N o mouth. when it acquires a body through the organism. at the point where the differences of level are perpetually and violently mixed." It is a whole nonorganic life. No tongue. As opposed to a miserabilisle Painter who paints parts of organs. takes on an excessive and spasmodic appearance. No esophagus. zones. cinematic movements. Bacon has not ceased " paint bodies without organs. an "affective athleticism. this rhythmic unity of the senses. which no longer determines with itself representative elements." 1 The body without organs is opposed less to organs than to that organization of organs we call an organism. there lies what Artaud discovered and named: the body without organs. The body is completely living. -"The body is the body / it stands alone / it has no need of organs / the body is never an organism / organisms are the enemies ol" bodies. When sensation is linked to the body in Mils way." a scream-breath. but has only an intensive reality. The phenomcnological hypothesis is perhaps insufficient because it merely invokes the lived body. and dynamic tendencies. Likewise sensation.Hysteria Chapter 7 Hysteria The body without organs: Artaud Worringcr's Gothic line What the •'difference of level" in sensation means Vibration Hysteria and presence Bacon's doubt Hysteria. it is what imprisons life. but allotropic variations. But the lived body is still a paltry thing in comparison with a more profound and almost unlivable Power [Puissance]. No anus.
Life provides many ambiguous approaches to the body without organs (alcohol."' In fact. But the pictorial line in Gothic painting is completely different. The scrubbed and brushed parts of the canvas are. through its clarity and nonorganic precision. turned in on itself. Classical art can be figurative. dying away in a "disordered convulsion": there arc free marks that extend or arrest the line. coiled up."' But what does it mean to speak of a polyvalent Orifice or an indeterminate organ? Are not a mouth and . It also attests to a high spirituality. on the condition that it is no longer organic: it elevates mechanical forces to sensible intuition. adjunction. it simply lacks the organism. but a geometry in the service of "problems" or "accidents. when it extricates a geometric form from the representation. An organ will be determined by this encounter. that is broken. restored to their state of zones or levels: "the human visage has not yet found its face A powerful nonorganic life: this is how Worringer defined Gothic art. It is thus a line that never ceases to change direction. and which will be displaced in order to be posited elsewhere. but on the contrary by imposing. this particular organization of organs. It is thus a geometry or a decoration that has become vital and profound. acting beneath or beyond representation. drugs. as is its geometry and figure. intersection. "the northern Gothic line. But this Hysteria spirituality is a spirituality of the body. schizophrenia. . but it can also be abstract. but it is a material decoration that does not outline a form. since what leads it to seek the elementary forces beyond the organic is a spiritual will. the spirit is the body itself. the entire organism changes color and consistency in split-second adjustments. ." 2 It is opposed in principle to the organic representation of classical art. projection. sadomasochism.Francis Bacon body. " N o organ is constant as regards cither function or position . in what sense? A wave with a variable amplitude flows through the body without organs. sex organs sprout anywhere . a zone where forms become indiscernible. make an air hole direct into the lungs where it should have been in the first place." ablation. . it lies at the surface. a sensation appears. Tectums open. . or even extended beyond its natural limits. the body without organs (The first Figure of Bacon would be that of a Gothic decorator). When the wave encounters external forces at a particular level. and is not a passage of time needed '" get from one to the other? Even in the meat. 1 " anus very distinct. whereas the organism is defined by determinate organs: "Instead oi a mouth and an anus to get out of order why not have "He all-purpose hole to eat and eliminate? We could seal up nose and mouth. The body without organs is thus defined by an indeterminate organ. and so on). that is. if it becomes animalized. . parts of a neutralized organism. diverted. split." and if so. is not 46 17 . . It is a geometry no longer in the service of the essential and eternal. this line is decorative. but it is a provisional organ that endures only as long as the passage of the wave and the action of the force. defecate and close . First of all. it works through violent movements. it traces zones and levels on this body according to the variations of its amplitude. But can the living reality of this body be named "hysteria. insofar as it refers to something represented. it is not by outlining a form. If it encounters the animal. in Bacon. the body without organs does not lack organs. fill in the stomach.
of the afterward. right '" l l "' middle of everything . Next. . this body without organs and these transitory organs arc themselves seen. But the body without organs does give an account of it. of domain). it is finally defined by the temporary and provisional presence of determinate organs. the body without organs is not defined by the absence of organs. the transitory organs are felt under the organization of the fixed organs. . an organ will be determined depending on the force it encounters: and this organ will change if the force itself changes. in psychiatry and elsewhere. there is the direct action of these forces on the nervous system." Finally. The variation of texture and color on a body. the hyperesthetics or anesthetics. . or at the same level under the action of different Ibices. the 49 I. of delay (hysteresis). sometimes fixed and sometimes migrant. depending on the passage of the nervous wave and the zones it invests or withdraws from. there is the transitory character of the organ's determination. liven the phenomenological unity did not give an account of it. Next.to temporary and transitory organs. as if the hysteric were a sleepwalker. or a back (as in Three Studies of the Male Back of 1970 [63]) is actually a temporal variation regulated down to the tenth of a second. nor is it defined solely by the existence of an indeterminate organ. which is very different from the treatment of the fields of color: the chronochromatism of the body is opposed to the monochromatism of the flat fields. What is a mouth at one level becomes an anus at another level. and I see myself in this naked body when 1 a iii dressed . which depend on the accelerations and delays of the wave's oscillations. but I feel myself in the body that 1 see. or if it moves to another level. in phenomena known as internal or external "autoscopia": it is no longer my head. and moves from one level to another. a "Vigilambulist. This is one way of introducing time into the painting. on the contrary. precisely because the body is felt under the body. First of all. a head. In short. there is a very peculiar feeling that arises from within the body.Francis Bacon there a very distinct mouth. If we look at the "picture"' of hysteria that was Hysteria formed in the nineteenth century. Hence the chromatic treatment of the body."' Is there a psychosis in the w <>rld thai might include this hysterical condition? "A kind (. recognizable through its teeth. the same Ireland: the round area. " ' ' I»(keti"s Characters and Bacon's Figures share a """Hon setting. we find a number of features that have continually animated Bacon's bodies. . and there is a great force of time in Bacon. there are the famous spastics and paralytics. .". Now this complete scries constitutes the hysterical reality of the body.| incomprehensible stopping place in the spirit. time itself is being painted. Furthermore. which depends on the forces that are exerted upon it. but I feel myself inside a head. I see and I see myself inside a head: or else I do not see myself in the mirror. We can see from this how every sensation implies a difference of level (of order. associated or alternating. a somnambulist in the waking state. if we look at the complete scries: without organs to the indeterminate polyvalent organ . which cannot be confused with other organs? This is what must be understood: the wave Hows through the body: at a certain level. Then there are the phenomena of precipitation and anticipation or. and so forth. To put time inside the Figure this is the force of bodies in Bacon: the large male back as variation.
7 The presence of a body without organs under the organism. or of the panning itself.. is that there is a special relation between painting '""I hysteria. the "hystericized. interrupt its figurative course. Interminable presence. through the anus or the stomach. that is. T h e insistence of a scream that survives the mouth. And why refer specifically to painting. beforehand. the way it escapes from the organism It escapes from itself through the open mouth. There is therefore little difference between the hysteric. The spastics and the hypercsthetics arc often indicated by wiped or scrubbed /ones [71]. the insistence of transitory organs that survive the qualified organs. What is this hysterical smile? Where is the abomination or abjection of this smile? Presence or insistence. by missing zones (as in the very detailed 1972 triptych [70]). presence . And in this excessive presence." Could this presence be hysterical:' The hysteric is at the same time someone who imposes his or her presence. A clothed Figure of Bacon's is seen nude in the mirror or on the canvas (Two Studies for a Portrait of George Dyer. Sartre meant nothing less when he called himself a hysteric. which makes representation. impossible. the way the body escapes from itself. that has disappeared into the camera." and the "hysterici/. Everywhere there is a presence acting directly on the nervous system. Presence. and yet give it back afterward . or of painting in general? It is true that "'(•re are numerous dangers in constructing a clinical aesthetic (which nonetheless has the advantage of not . The insistence of the smile beyond the face and beneath the face. this is the first word that comes to mind in front of one of Bacon's paintings.e mg a psychoanalysis). on the human head of 1953 [13]. we will see that Bacon's whole "'style" takes place in a beforehand and an afterward: what takes place before the painting has even begun. . abandons his entire head to the camera of a photobooth.es when. he abandons himself completely to the image." Bacon explains rather testily that the hysterical smile he painted on the Hysteria [953 portrait [11]. but also what takes place afterward. a hysteresis that will break olf the work each time.or. the Dcpopulator. . or rather. or through the circle of the washbasin. . sees. whether in place or at a distance.. and speaks. Above all. when we could invoke so many writers or even '""sicians Schumann and the contraction of the linger. ""' audition of the voice. 1 " ^\ hat kind of hysteria are we speaking of here? Is it the hysteria of Bacon himself. or through the throat. sees himself in a head that belongs to the camera. the presence of the attendant. in "Cot. Bacon himself hysterici/. too present. the identity of an already-there and an always-delayed. 1968 [50]). and on the 1955 Pope [19] came from a "model" who was "very neurotic and almost hysterical. the series of spastics and paralytics inside the round area. who still feels.'"' But in fact it is the whole painting that is hysterici/. the stroll of the Vigilambulator. Painting directly attempts 50 51 . . or through the point of the umbrella. and spoke of Flaubert's hysteria. or of the painter. and who attributes to every thing and communicates to every being this excessive presence. and the anesthetics and paralytics.)? What wc are suggesting. It is very simple.cd.Francis Bacon isolator. but also someone for whom things and beings are present. the presence of transitory organs under organic representation. the insistence of a body that survives the organism. .
) . the armchair already delineates the prison of the parallcle ptpcd. It liberates lines and colors from their representative function. Bacon has hystericized all the elements of Velasquez's painting. . Velasquez was undoubtedly the wisest of the classical painters. but has not yet acquired the ineluctable. This is the double definition of painting: subjectively. ."' said Cezanne. from its character as a fixed and qualified organ: the eye becomes virtually the polyvalent indeterminate organ that sees the body without organs (the Figure) as a pure presence. This is not a hysteria of the painter. We must compare Velasquez's portrait with all of Bacon's paintings. It must also be said that the painter is not hysterical. Painting gives us eyes all over: in the ear. possessing an immense wisdom: he created his extraordinary audacities by holding firmly to the coordinates of representation. in the sense of a negation in negative theology. the curtain up front. We cannot simply compare the two portraits of Innocent X. that of Velasquez and that of Bacon. And each is produced by the other: the pure presence of the body becomes visible at the same time that the eye becomes the destined organ of this presence. but a hysteria of painting. in the stomach. but at the same time it also liberates the eye from its adherence to the organism. Painting transmutes this cerebral pessimism into nervous optimism. With painting. But all of this is strangely restrained: it is something that is going to J*aPl>en. the brute '"'•"• and the screaming mouth. What the hysteric is incapable of doing .a little art is accomplished in painting. who transforms it into the screaming Pope. ""'prcssiblc presence of Bacon's newspapers. die almost '"'"nal-like armchairs. in the lungs the painting breathes . It invests the eye through color and line. objectively. the horror of life becomes a very pure and very intense life. fixed eye of the Pope already sees something invisible looming up [112]. Hysteria Painting has two ways of avoiding this fundamental livsteria: either by conserving the figurative coordinates of organic representation. it brings before us the reality of a body. . and why does he claim him as his master? Why. But it does not treat the eye as a fixed organ. when he speaks of his versions of the portrait of Pope Innocent X. by assuming completely the role of a documentarian . Abjection becomes splendor. The color system itself is a system of direct action on the nervous system. the heavy curtain in back is already tending to move up front. does he express his doubt and discontent? In a way. . hysteria becomes art. . Or rather. Painting is hysteria. In Velasquez. which ceases to be organic in order to become a polyvalent and transitory organ. with the painter. or else by turning toward abstract form. •"id the attentive. even if that means using them in very subtle ways or making these liberated presences or unorganized bodies pass beneath or between these coordinates. and the mantelet has aspects of a side of beef. it invests the eye. " What is Bacon's relation to Velasquez. an unreadable yet clear parchment is in the hand.Francis Bacon to release the presences beneath representation. "Life is frightening. beyond representation. Should these presences 52 :>:i . and inventing a properly pictorial cercbrality ("reviving" painting in this direction). because it makes presence immediately visible. of lines and colors freed from organic representation. or converts hysteria. hysteria becomes painting. but in this cry he had already given voice to all the joys of line and color.
and possibly their clinical essence. infinitely better. the ear. to use Stcndahl's words. in Velasquez? In refusing both the figurative path and the abstract path. in short.12 But in the end. why should all this be peculiar to painting? Clan we speak of a hysterical essence of painting. majestic." The adventure of painting is that it is the eye alone that can attend to material existence or material presence . and this is what is meant when one speaks of the superiority Of music. in a motif ." 1 3 In a sense. Certainly music traverses our bodies in profound ways. It gives a disembodied and demateriali/. "Our eye. independent of any psychiatry and psychoanalysis? Why could not music also extricate pure presences.but as Proust said.ed body to the most spiritual of entities: " T h e beats of the timpani in the Requiem arc sharp. but is confronted more and more with a galloping schizophrenia. in another element. But it involves our body." 14 This is why music does not have hysteria as its clinical essence. the pure presence of which it is made. in the lungs. When music sets up its sonorous system and its polyvalent organ. under the rubric of a purely aesthetic clinic. and even of a bodily combat in m u s i c for example. To hystcricizc music we would have to reintroduce colors. surely has relations with another world. is less difficult than it seems to be. Were not things better. was it necessary to display this relationship between hysteria and painting in full view? While our eye is enchanted with the two Innocent Xs. and bodies in general. and divine." said Gauguin. and which it would not discover otherwise. whereas painting is lodged farther up. the body Hysteria discovers the materiality of which it is composed. of the materiality of their presence: it disembodies bodies. it addresses itself to something very different than the material reality of bodies. and they can only announce to our surprised ears the coming of a being who. but through an car that has become the polyvalent organ for sonorous bodies? And why not poetry or theater. "insatiable and in heat. discovers the material reality of bodies with its line-color systems and its polyvalent organ. Painting. it is an immaterial and disembodied combat "in which there subsists not one scrap of inert matter refractory to the mind. It knows all about waves and nervousness.Francis Bacon have been let loose? asks Bacon. musjc begins where painting ends. when it is those of Artaud or Beckett? This problem concerning the essence of each art. putting an ear in the stomach. passing through a rudimentary or refined system of correspondence between sounds and colors. the eye.even that of an apple. but which find their consistency elsewhere. where the body escapes from itself. 54 55 . It is lodged on lines of flight that pass through bodies. It strips bodies of their inertia. We can thus speak with exactitude of a sonorous body. and so on. Bacon questions himself. But in escaping.
how can time be painted. For many painters. But if force is the condition of sensation. the insensible force of one art instead seems to take part in the "givens" of another art: for example. and their possible hierarchy. the problem 01 capturing forces. it is nonetheless not the force that is sensed. In art. no matter how conscious it may have "'•'"• was mixed with another problem. relax or contract itself. the unheard-of force of a 5. Likewise. on a point of the wave. For this reason no art is figurative. it is not a matter of reproducing or inventing forms. And was it not Cezanne's genius to have subordinated all the techniques of painting to this task: rendering visible the folding force of mountains. how to make colors audible?) This is a problem of which painters are very conscious. This other problem was the decomposition " "'"""position of effects: for example. and not the offertory or the sack of > potatoes. but to render visible" means nothing else. he was striving to paint the force <f that weight. loses all importance. and in painting as in music. the K'Tiiiinativc force of a seed. how to paint sound. since the sensation "gives" something completely different from the forces that condition it. When pious critics criticized Millet for painting peasants who were carrying an offertory like a sack of potatoes. infiowersced. the question concerning the separation of the arts. music attempts to render sonorous forces that are not themselves sonorous. so as to capture these nongiven forces in what it gives us. the decomposition 57 56" . to make us sense these insensible forces. Sometimes these are the same thing: l i m e . but of capturing forces. germination how can they be rendered? Sometimes. and so on? And Van Gogh: Van Gogh even '"vented unknown forces.Painting Forces Chapter 8 Painting Forces Rendering the invisible: the problem of painting Deformation: neither transformation nor decomposition The scream Bacon's love of life Enumeration of forces From another point of view. How will sensation be able to sufficiently turn in on itself. gravitation. on the contrary. That much is clear. which is nonsonorous and invisible . the thermic force of a landscape. Paul Rice's famous formula "Not to render the visible. attraction. The task of painting is defined as the attempt to render visible forces that are not themselves visible. and raise itself to its own conditions? It is in this way that music must render nonsonorous forces sonorous. a force must be exerted on a body. weight. their respective autonomy. however. equally import' " " but less pure. Millet responded by saying that the weight common to the two objects was more profound than their figurative distinction. and painting must render invisible forces visible. Force is closely related to sensation: for a sensation to exist. inertia. As a painter. For there is a community of the arts. or even the scream? (And conversely. a common problem. how can time be heard? And elementary forces like pressure.
to remain seated as long as Possible. 54]: the extraordinary agitation of these heads is derived not from a movement that the scries would supposedly reconstitute. but rather from the forces of pressure. they are not tortures. despite ''PP'aiances. but he thinks that. 49. and at the same time. since movement. Not that he despises them. in the whole history which is that of painting. by making truth fall buck on the body. When a force is exerted on a scrubbed part. of "rendering" movement.' But if this is the case. cloths curl like burning p a p e r . to turn over. irreducible to any of them: and the lines of force that it creates escape every lorm through their very clarity. . T h e wiped and swept parts of the face here take on a new meaning. it turns this zone into a zone of indiscernibility that is common to several forms. the structure. These arc two very different categories. . begins to stir: "walls twitch and slide. it subordinates movement to force. The transformation of form can be abstract or dynamic. they have been adequately mastered by the painters he admires. particularly the problem of movement. the deformation is obtained in the form at rest. it is reason enough to confront even more directly the problem of "rendering" invisible forces visible. It is force that constitutes deformation as an act of painting: it lends itself neither to a transformation of form. Cezanne was perhaps the first to have made deformations without transformation. and it is static. for example. 58 59 . Bacon's Figures seem to be one of the most marvelous responses in the history of painting to the question. it happens at one place. we will see that Bacon remains relatively indifferent to the problem of effects. This is true of all Bacon's series of heads and the scries of self-portraits. 48. nor does it combine sensible forms dynamically: on the contrary. chairs bend or rear up a little.Francis Bacon and recomposition of deptli in the Renaissance. We can see how one problem leads to the other. through their deforming precision (we saw this in the becoming-animal of the Figures I. and not transformation. the decomposition and recomposition of colors in impressionism. and to a multiplicity of decomposable and rccomposable elements beneath this force. Here again Bacon is Cezannean: for both Bacon and Cezanne. they are the most natural postures of a body that has been reorganized by the simple lone being exerted upon it: the desire to sleep. it does not give birth to an abstract form. contraction. and elongation that are exerted Oil the immobile head. is an effect that refers both to a unique force that produces it. It is as if invisible forces were striking the head from many different angles. They are like the forces of the cosmos confronting an intergalactic traveler immobile in his capsule. But deformation is always bodily. the whole material environment. On the contrary. . nor to a decomposition of •biiHiits. and it is even the reason he made these series [34.. dilation. How can one make invisible forces visible? This is the primary function of the Figures. because they mark the zone where the force is in the process of Painting Farces striking. everything is force. This is why the problems Bacon faces are indeed those of deformation. "2 Everything is now related to forces. the decomposition and recomposition of movement in cubism. to '"'"it. but it also subordinates the abstract to the Figure. And Bacon's deformations are rarely constrained or forced. In this respect. flattening.
Bacon says that he himself is cerebrally pessimistic. that convulse the body until they emerge at the mouth as a scrubbed zone. 24). and those of heaven in the vertical scream of Lulu. In the same manner. But in both cases. . but to establish a relationship between the sound of the scream and the forces that sustain it. which are nothing other than the forces of the future. as if that were en ough to leave the figurative behind." the violence of sensation more than the violence °l die spectacle? The invisible forces. The interviews contain many statements of this sort. the horrors of the world. This is what Bacon means when he says he wanted "to paint the scream more than the horror. not only as someone who can no longer be seen.not to scream before or about. it would be: either I paint the horror and I do not paint the scream.' Every scream contains them potentially. but he screams behind the curtain. " [16. But the forces that produce the scream. the perceptible force of the scream and the imperceptible force that makes one scream. and will have less and less importance: Bacon will reproach himself lor painting too much horror. and that even lie beyond pain and feeling. It is not at all a matter of giving color to a particularly intense sound. and I do not paint the visible horror. is faced with the same task. Why does Bacon think of the scream as one of the highest objects of painting? •"Faint the s c r e a m . it is always as victims of invisible and insensible forces that scramble every spectacle. and declares that the first must be renounced to reach the second. must not be confused with the visible spectacle before which one screams. but to scream at death which suggests this coupling of forces. Bacon creates the painting of the scream because he establishes a Painting Forces relationship between the visibility of the scream (the open mouth as a shadowy abyss) and invisible forces. the powers of the 60 i. he established a relationship between the sound of the scream and inaudible forces: those of the earth in the horizontal scream of Marie. since the scream captures or detects an invisible force. because I make a figuration of the horrible. for its part. who has nothing left to sec. or else I paint the scream. but as someone who cannot sec. nor even with the perceptible and sensible objects whose action decomposes and recomposes our pain. these powers of the future. I will paint the visible horror less and less. that of the spectacle and that of sensation. and then in the very different scream of Lulu. It was Kafka who spoke of detecting the diabolical powers of the future knocking at the door. . painting will establish a relationship between these forces and the visible scream (the mouth that screams). which is certainly not to render the scream harmonious. it is a kind of declaration of faith in life." 3 If we could express this as a dilemma. But why is it an ac| of vital faith to choose ""the scream more than the ""Tor. Innocent X screams. But he is nervously optimistic. because visible figuration is secondary in painting. This is what is expressed in the phrase "to scream a t " . When Bacon distinguishes between two violences. whose only remaining function is to render visible these invisible forces that are making him scream.l . he can scarcely see anything but horrors to paint.Francis Bacon We must consider the special case of the scream. but it is a source of extraordinary vitality. This is all very curious. that is. If we scream.' Albas Berg knew how to make music out of the scream in the scream of Marie. he moves more •"<d more toward a Figure without horror. Music.
but also a force that separates the figures and panels." which involves '''formation. like a wrestler. fall or failure. Although Bacon likens himself to a "pulverizer" or a "grinder. The third arc the forces of dissipation. Death is judged from the point of view of life. it is this invisible force that life detects. indomitable through both their insistence and their presence. .:. When the visual sensation confronts the invisible force that conditions it. it gives them no other visibility than its own. which seize the Figure's body and head. 76) I. in a certain sense .Francis Bacon future . the flattening force of sleep [53. for example. The same homage should be paid to Bacon as can be paid to Beckett or Kafka. but which they render visible by extracting from it a kind of polygon or diagram? And beyond that. and makes visible through the scream. prosthesis. but one that serves an increasingly powerful Figure of life. when the Figure fades away and returns to the field: what then renders these forces visible is a strange smile.every piece of meat testifies to this. Can life. It is as if combat had now become possible. They have given life a new and extremely direct power of laughter. and become visible whenever the head shakes off its face. Life screams at death. and become visible when they wrap themselves around the contour and wrap the fields around the Figure. flushes out. what is the mysterious force that can only be captured or detected by triptychs? It is at the same time a force (characteristic of light) that unites the whole. But in another sense. The struggle with the shadow is the only real struggle. in the name of a very intense life. or even befriending it. T h e second arc the forces of deformation. hidden in a spectacle that sapped our strength and diverted us. and then there is the force of eternal time. is one of those artists who. His is indeed a figurative rniserabilisme. of that invisible force of coupling that sweeps over two bodies with an extraordinary energy. But there are still many other forces. first of all. no less than Beckett. the visible body confronts the powers of the invisible. He is not a painter who "believes" in death. down to the tenth of a second. When. and make an empirical list of the forces Bacon detects and captures. to render the force of time visible Bacon seems to have done this twice. they have erected indomitable Figures. can nine. The first invisible forces are those of isolation: they arc supported by the fields.arc they not already upon us. and much more insurmountable than the worst spectacle and even the worst pain? Yes. be rendered sensible. it releases a force that is capable of vanquishing the invisible force. It is within this visibility that the body actively struggles. no. What can be said. (Bacon knows how to "render" intensely. a luminous separation that should not be confused with the preceding isolation. through the allotropic variation of bodies.1' Bacon. 62 i. which was beyond its reach as long as these powers remained invisible. as we like to believe. or the body its organism. There is the force of 'banging time. Since the visible movements of the Figures are Painting Forces subordinated to the invisible forces exerted upon them. In the very act of "representing" horror. mutilation. but death is no longer this all-toovisible thing that makes us faint. can call for an even more intense life. we can go behind the movements to these forces. rendered visible? To render •ime visible. and not the reverse. affirming the possibility of triumphing." he is really more like a detective.
Francis Bacon the eternity of time, through the uniting separating that reigns in the triptyehs, a pure light. To render time sensible in itself is a task common to the painter, the musician, and sometimes the writer. It is a task beyond all measure or cadence.
Chapter 9 Couples and Triptyehs
Coupled Figures The battle and the coupling of sensation Resonance Rhythmic Figures Amplitude and the three rhythms Two ivpes of "'matters of fact" It is a characteristic of sensation to pass through different levels owing to the action of forces. But two sensations, each having their own level or zone, can also confront each other and make their respective levels communicate. Mere we are no longer in the domain of simple vibration, but that of resonance. There are thus two Figures coupled together. Or rather, what is decisive is the coupling of sensations: there is one and the same mailer of fact for two figures, or even a single coupled Figure for two bodies. From the start, we have seen that, according to Bacon, the painter could not give up the idea of putting several Figures in the painting at the same time, although there was always the danger of reintroducing a "story"" or 'ailing back into narrative painting. The question thus concerns the possibility that there may exist relations between simultaneous Figures that are nonillustrative and nonnarrative (and not even logical), and which could be called, precisely, "matters of fact." Such is indeed the case here, where the coupling of sensations '"'in different levels creates the coupled Figure and not
Francis Bacon the reverse). What is painted is the sensation. There is a beauty to these entangled Figures [69]. They do not merge with each other, but are rendered indiscernible by the extreme precision of the lines, which acquire a kind of autonomy in relation to the body, like a diagram whose lines would bring together nothing but sensations. 1 There is one Figure common to two bodies, or one "fact" common to two Figures, without the slightest story being narrated [12, 17, 60, 61). Bacon never stopped painting coupled Figures, either during his "malerisch" period or in the later works of clarity: crushed bodies, included in a single Figure, under a single force of coupling. Far from contradicting the principle of isolation, the coupled Figure seems to make the isolated Figures simple particular cases. For even in cases where there is a single body or a simple sensation, the different levels through which this sensation passes already necessarily constitute couplings of sensation. Vibration already produces resonance. For example, the man under the umbrella of 1946 \'.i] is a simple Figure, corresponding to the passage of sensations from top to bottom (the meat above the umbrella I and from bottom to top (the head seized by the umbrella). But it is also a coupled Figure, corresponding to the confrontation of the sensations in the head and in the meat, to which the horrible falling smile bears witness. In the end, there are only coupled Figures in Bacon (the Lying Figure in a Mirror of 1971 [67) has to be unique; it counts as two Figures, it is a veritable diagram of sensation). Even the simple Figure is often coupled with its animal. At the beginning of his book on Bacon, John Russell invokes Proust and involuntary memory. 1 ' Although
Couples and Triptych* Proust's world seems to have little in common with Bacon's though Bacon often invokes the involuntary), one still has the impression that Russell is correct. This is perhaps because Bacon, when he refuses the double way of a figurative painting and an abstract painting, is put in a situation analogous to that of Proust in literature. Proust did not want an abstract literature that was too voluntary philosophy), any more than he wanted a figurative, illustrative, or narrative literature that merely told a story. What he was striving for, what he wanted to bring to light, was a kind of Figure, torn away from figuration and stripped of every figurative function: a Figure-in-itself, for example, the Figure-in-itself of Combray. He himself spoke of "truths written with the help of figures."'1 And if, in many cases, he resorted to involuntary memory, it was because it succeeded in making this pure Figure appear, as opposed to voluntary memory, which was content to illustrate or narrate the past. How, according to Proust, did involuntary memory operate? It coupled together two sensations that existed at dill'erent levels of the body, and that seized each other like two wrestlers, the present sensation and the past sensation, in order to make something appear that was irreducible to either of them, irreducible to the past as well as to the present: this Figure. And in the end. the fact thai the two sensations were divided into present and past, and thus that it was an instance of memory, was of little importance. There were cases where the coupling of sensation, the imprint of sensations, made no appeal to memory; for instance, desire, or still more profoundly, art Elstir's painting or Vinteuil's music). What mattered Was the resonance of the two sensations when they seized
Francis Bacon each other, like the sensation of the violin and the sensation of the piano in the sonata. It was like the beginning of the world, as if there had been, as yet, only the two of them on Earth, or rather in this world closed to all the rest, constructed by the logic of a creator in such a way that in it no one else would ever exist except the two of them: this sonata.' This is the Figure of the sonata, or the emergence of this sonata as a Figure. The same thing happens in the septet, where two motifs confront each other violently, each defined by a sensation, the one as a spiritual "calling," the other as a bodily " p a i n " or a "neuralgia." We are no longer concerned with the difference between music and painting. The important point is that the two sensations arc coupled together like "wrestlers" and form a "combat of energies," even if it is a disembodied combat, from which is extracted an ineffable essence, a resonance, an epiphany erected within the closed world. 3 Proust knew very well how to imprison things and people: he did so, he said, in order to capture their colors (Combray in a cup of tea, Albertine in a bedroom). In a curious passage. Bacon the portraitist says that he does not like to paint the dead, or people he does not know (since they have no flesh); and those he knows, he docs not like to have in front of his eyes. He prefers a current photograph and a recent memory, or rather the sensation of a current photograph and that of a recent impression: this is what makes the act of painting a kind of "recall." 6 But in fact it is not a question of memory (even less so than it was for Proust). What matters is the confrontation of the two sensations, and the resonance
Couples and Triptychs that is derived from it. It is like the wrestlers whose movement was decomposed by Muybridge's photographs. It is not that everything is at war, embattled, as one might think from the viewpoint of a figurative pessimist. What produces the struggle or confrontation is the coupling of diverse sensations in two bodies, and not the reverse, so that the struggle is also the variable Figure of two bodies sleeping intertwined, or which desire mixes together, or which painting makes resonate. Sleeping, desire, art: these are places of confrontation and resonance, places of a struggle. Coupling or resonance is not the only development of the complex sensation. Coupled Figures frequently appear in the triptychs, particularly in the central panel. Yet we quickly realize that the coupling of sensation, important as it is, gives us no means of discovering the nature of a triptych, its function, and above all the relations that exist between its three parts. The triptych is undoubtedly the form in which the following demand is posed most precisely: there must be a relationship between the separated parts, but this relationship must hi- neither narrative nor logical. The triptych does not imply a progression, and it does not tell a story. Thus it 'oo. in turn, has to incarnate a common fact for diverse Figures. It has to produce a "matter of fact." But the previous solution of coupling is of no use here, for the Figures are and remain separated in the triptych. They Miusi remain separated, and do not resonate. There are therefore two types of nonnarrative relations, two types of matters of fact" or common facts: the coupled Figure, •uid the separated Figures as parts of a triptych. But how l ' " i these latter Figures have a common fact?
the attendant can be reduced to the circle of the circus ring. which he travels through in both directions. for they would all introduce a narration into the painting. as we have seen. can affect a single Figure. or is he a man set on high. can be two attendants. despite of everything). This is why the girl is stiff like a stake. and that look inside their heads ("Can you hear me?" "Can anyone see me?" "Can anyone hear me?" "Does anyone care about me at all?"). The little girl seems to function as a "attendant. to a photographic apparatus or camera. and must take into account the separation of Figures which are nonetheless united in the painting.Francis Bacon The same question could be asked apart from the triptychs." 8 Doubtless one could say that the painting is the possibility of all these hypotheses or narrations at the same time. the attendant only indicates a constant. but obviously it can also be divided between two Figures. Rhythm would cease to . in relation to which we can appraise a variation. 70 7! . the contorted man sitting on the chair and the little girl standing stiffly. but it is in the triptychs. and merely figurative). And doubtless the double variation. with their separate Panels. Even Beckett's characters require attendants that measure the intimate allotropic variations of their bodies. Bacon admires Cezanne's The Bathers [98] because several Figures are put together on the canvas. for its part. But there must be an attendant-Figure for the variationFigure. This is thus one case where the "matter of fact" cannot be a coupling of sensation. are separated by a whole region of the field that cuts an angle between the two. with an '"creasing variation or amplification. the "attendant" rhythm. and seems to beat time with her clubfoot. an "active" rhythm. We would then nave three rhythms: first. a judge who shall shortly pass sentence?' And he refuses each hypothesis in turn." 7 These Figures are separated. Russell comments: Is the girl standing in disgrace before her unforgiving father? Is she the man's jailor. llius the problem already exists quite apart from the "iptychs. Consider a painting of Bacon's like the 1963 Man and Child 132]: the two Figures. More profoundly. outfacing him with folded arms as he writhes in his chair and looks the other way? Is she an abnormality. with a decreasing variation or elimination. and •'"ally. a physical freak returned to haunt him. does not signify an observer or a spectator-voyeur (although it might also be one from the point of view of a figuration that still Couples and Triptychs remains. that it is posed in the pure state." But this attendant. and yet they arc not caught up in a "story. while the man is seated in a double variation. But this is because the painting itself is beyond all narration. In both Bacon and Beckett. as if he were seated on a barber's chair that raises and lowers him through the levels of sensation. a measure or cadence. and not at all coupled: their inclusion on a single canvas must thus imply a common fact of a different type than the coupling of sensation. moving in two directions. then a "passive" r h\ihm. that would constitute the Figure. to a photo-memory. and we shouldn't even ask to know. or several attendants (but in any case the interpretation of the attendant as a voyeur or spectator is insufficient.( ' attached to and dependent on a Figure: it is rhythm itself '"' would become the Figure. And the attendant. "We shall never know.
Couples and Triptychs because it confronts and unites the diverse levels of different sensations: it is now resonance. it is rhythm that becomes Figure. but themselves constitute rhythmic characters. This hypothesis allows us to assign the triptychs a privileged place in Bacon's oeuvre. The triptych would be the distribution of the three basic rhythms. or thrown in the air. 9 We can thus formulate a hypothesis about the nature of the triptych. rhythm lakes on an extraordinary amplitude in & forced movement which gives it an autonomy. with very dilferent means). the Figures are lifted up.Yight " ' " ' / / |1()8| (or in those still-life paintings where the Passes at a constant level are •'half-aerial attendants. For in Rembrandt's still files or genre paintings. it is what makes the sensation pass from one level to another. this amplitude of light. and produces in us the impression of time: the limits of sensation are broken. 1 0 72 73 . With the triptych." while the two spirals of the peeled lemon and the mother°'-pcarl are set against each other). the passive. it is the diagram of the coupled Figure. the strangest phenomenon of recomposition or redistribution is produced. . I'. . how does he implement this total re-creation of the triptych? He makes the triptych equivalent to the movements or parts of a piece of music more than a piece of furniture. But in the simple sensation. finally. but also in his portraits." that will have a bizarre effect. their distribution into active. lastly. . it is the vector of the sensation. and Bacon could look to Rembrandt for his own (and Soutine. But there are also resonances that are derived from the layers of superimposed sensations. as in Rembrandt's . rather than a linear one. about its law or its order. the second character suffers this act. since his actions are dominated by those of the first. exceeded in all directions. In the coupling of sensation. and attendant rhythm. And even more. there is what Claudel described. and likes to paint constant attendants on them. for it is the rhythm itself that becomes sensation. the points and counterpoints. But how does he restore such a topicality to the triptych. assuring the extreme division of Figures. rhythm is still dependent on the Figure. .iini the sensation which is essentially r h y t h m . and the a t t e n d a n t . it appears as the vibration that flows through the body without organs. the third character is present at the conflict but remains inactive. of a coupled Figure. but it is still merged together with the melodic lines. . and attendant Figures. There is a circular organization in the triptych. and demonstrated that they no longer referred to characters that have rhythm. an immense "stable and motionless background. rhythm is already liberated. Messiaen looked to Stravinsky and Beethoven as his precursors. who thinks of his paintings as movable objects. placed upon aerial riggings from which they suddenly fall. the active. there is first of all a disturbance or vibration: the contour is in the service "I vibration. That the triptych was traditionally a mobile painting or piece of furniture. according to its own separated directions. or tutelaries all of this suits Bacon. But at the same time. Passive. that the wings of the triptych often included observers priors.Francis Bacon This is exactly what Olivier Messiaen said about music when he distinguished between active rhythm. Imagine a scene in a play between three characters: the first acts in a brutal manner by hitting the second. . in this immobile fall. passive rhythm.
the observer on the left and the | photographer on the right [61]. union and separation The hypothesis must be verified: Is there an order in the triptyehs. the photographer on the right [74]. 1965. We can respond to this question only through an empirical study of the triptyehs. the figural attendant. but on the contrary. each being the retrogradation of the other. ' he horizontal can also be executed in a movement of translation. 1 In the triptyehs. The horizontal defines a rhythm that is rctrogradablc in itself. if it exists. and the nude woman in the left panel [35]. which arc vertical. But we can also see that things are much more complicated. even if only secondarily. 1970. the two small old men seated at a table in the right panel. in the 1953 triptych of the head (left Panel [ 13]. will be one who does not see. its horizontality. one of which would be the attendant or the measure of the two others? But since this order. there is the flat hysterical smile. and docs this order consist in distributing the three fundamental rhythms. the two discpiieting characters in the left panel [29]. For the attendantfunction can refer to these characters figuratively. the two "attendants. we must expect it to present very diverse aspects. are rctrogradablc only in relation to each other. the two simulacra of portraits on the right and left [79]. It will be defined as an attendant because of a completely different feature. which appears not only. 1968." one nude and the other clothed. combines many variables. and so on. this more profound attendant (in the second sense will not be one who observes or sees. namely. since there is always a figuration that persists. without augmentation or diminution: it is the attendant-rhythm. who is not in a position to see. 1976. but an abominable head that smiles along the horizontal deformation of the mouth. Yet this same attendant-function can suddenly refer figuratively to a completely different character. The attendant in this second sense will not be the same as the attendant in the first sense. as in the 1973 triptych [73]: a horizontal '•"islation in the center panel makes us move from the 75 . it is thus on the horizontal that wc must seek the attendant-rhythm with a constant value. whereas the two others. First. as we have seen. its almost constant level. thus without increase or decrease. 1974. The more profound attendant. on the left and right panels [53]. Moreover. First of all. but already in the 1944 triptych of monsters central panel) [1]. where the head with bandaged eyes is ""I a head preparing to die. I'his horizontal can be presented in several Figures.What h a Triptych? Chapter 10 Note: What Is a Triptych? The attendant The active and the passive The fall: the active reality of the difference in level Light. one who sees the superficial attendant (in the first sense): there will thus have been a genuine exchange of the attendantfunction in the triptych. we can see that there are many explicit attendants in the triptyehs: 1962.
the visible character and the rhythmic character. even more frequently. conversely. This is why the sleeping characters in the triptychs often have a U'litit Is a Triptych? disturbing trace of activity or passivity: although they arc aligned on the horizontal. is free to assume other functions. a 76 77 . following a horizontal diagram. and the central panel of 1966 [38]. while the other is active and ready to fly away: or again. For example. In (ho 1944 triptych of monsters'[1]. the buttocks . a rctrogradablc rhythm or an attendant-witness following the horizontal. a great Circulation.Francis Bacon spasm on the right to the spasm on the left (here again we see that the order of succession. The triptychs thus utilize coupled Figures in their own way. the horizontal can be executed in a prone body. A third element of complexity concerns these two other "'V'hnis. they still retain a heaviness or vivacity.. while the one on the right is still animated. almost whirling. two things take place. active and passive. to the extent that the visible attendant gives way to the rhythmic attendant. Here then is the first element of complexity. Again. as in the left panel of the 1965 triptych [35). . together on the same panel. in a triptych of 1970 [61]. What do these two cl| i'ccij o n s of vertical variation consist ol? How are these lw ° opposable rhythms distributed? There are simple scs in which it is a matter of a descending rising "I'posiiiu. it thus turns into an active rhythm or a passive rhythm. as in the two pairs of sleepers in the right and left panels of Sweeney Agonisles [46J. the left panel of 1965 [35]. (Bacon occasionally puts the two attendants. 61). it comes into existence only when the function is passed on to it. which now ceases to be one. where a flattening force is exerted on the sleepers. But on the other hand.. as in the central panel of 1962 [29]. Or again. by its very complexity. whereas the visible attendants are on the \crgc of springing up or falling clown. To the extent that the attendant-function circulates throughout the painting. the coupled figure in the left panel is lying passively on its back. the visible attendants of the 1962 triptych [29] seem to raise themselves up like vampires. but it abandons them to afiect more profoundly a rhythm that has itself become a character. The rhythmic attendants are active or passive figures that have just discovered their constant level. a relaxation or contraction that comes from elsewhere. .) At this point. one which. it can be executed in several prone or coupled bodies. or in the two sleepers in the central panels of the 1970 triptychs [60. Thus. the rhythmic attendant does not appear as such immediately. ) . becoming '"'live or passive. On the one hand. testifies to a law of the triptychs: an attendantfunction is first imposed upon the visible characters. does not necessarily go from left to right). but one is passive and supporting his back so as not to fall. a second element of complexity appears. it links itself to one or the other at the very moment it ceases to be an attendant. Or again. we can compare the visible attendant on the left and the one on the right. or the right panel of Sweeney Agonisles [46]. There is thus a great mobility within the triptych. or arc still seeking it. the central panel of 1964 [33]. with one part of the Figure pointing below the horizon (the head. the visible attendant. when there is one. the same coupled Figure will be composed of an active body and a passive body. in Sweeney Agonisles [46]. until then it still has an active or passive rhythm.
is opposed to the covered shoulder with the relaxed and sunken head. or descent-flow. to the contortion of the man on the stool. in the 1966 triptych of Lucian Freud |38]. an added value can sometimes be produced by random spurts of paint. But sometimes the opposition is completely different and surprising: it is the opposition of the naked and the clothed which we find on the right and left panels of a 1970 triptych [60|. which Bacon likes to utilize. But then everything changes with the legs. on the right. '• is like a collection of hysterical "sleepings" and awakenings" affecting the diverse parts of a body. on the left. Here. are placed on either side of the head with the horizontal smile. expansion. even covering the dark mirror so as to emphasize its attendant-function. But this is already a particular case of another opposition. or again. II we reach such a great degree of complexity here. on the left. to the extreme contraction of the Nazi executioner. If the attendant in the center is furnished with elongations and a well-defined mauve oval. while the torso on the right is in the process of being built up. Bacon uses mutilations : "id prostheses in a game of added and subtracted values. In the left panel. red. by a form that seems to descend into itself and into a puddle. in the right panel. the 1964 Three Figures in a Room [33] opposes the dilatation of the man on the toilet. and an inverted head whose screaming mouth is aimed upward. Corrclatively. it is just the opposite: one leg is already amputated. is there n ot What Is a Triptych? another opposition that would even account for the naked and the clothed? This would be the augmentation diminution opposition. a diastolic systolic opposition. but which we had also found on the right and left panels of the 1968 triptych [53] in the two visible attendants. and "n-ir terms do not coincide. half of it having already been added. on the left. relaxed. the opposition between a large. through lines and colors. But perhaps the most striking and most moving example is in the triptych of August 1972 [70]." In particular. we find a diminished torso in the Figure on the left. it is "cause these diverse oppositions arc not equivalent. the exposed shoulder with the contracted head. on the right. turning into a pink pool lying next i" the chair.Francis Bacon descending head whose hair is falling downward. since what is added or subtracted is not a quantity. in the 1970 Studies of the Human Body [61]. and a tense. T h e result is a combinatorial 11 78 79 . in the left panel. a multiple or submultiple. More subtly. one leg is already finished. In this way. but values defined by their precision or "'brevity. the two recumbent Figures in the middle panel are flanked. since a whole portion of it is missing. But is above all one of Bacon's most profoundly musical paintings. The 1965 Crucifixion [35] opposes the descent-flow of the crucified meat on the central panel. on the right.and bluecolored back on the right. while the other is in the process of being defined: in the right panel. while the blue in the center seems to remain at a constant level. rosecolored back on the left. while the other is (lowing away. There can be an extraordinary subtlety in what one chooses to add or take away: here we enter into a more profound domain of values and rhythm. the mauve oval in the center changes status. And perhaps it is the Three Studies of the Male Back of 1970 [63] that displays most subtly. Finally. and a red discharge from the leg. it is the contraction which is opposed to a kind of extension. by a form that seems to rise up from its shadow and.
The active is the fall. Strangely. as the difference in What Is a Triptych? level contained in the sensation. For if we have the impression that one of the opposable rhythms is "active" and the other "passive. and systolic diastolic oppositions cannot be identified with each other. but it is not necessarily a descent in space. what matters in the two opposable rhythms is that each is the "rctrogradation" of the other. 2 It is like this in Bacon: the llesh descends from the bones. In the end. however." And as they touched they pulled them down abruptly and violently. and no list can ever be complete. The idea of a positive and active reality of die fall is essential here. n a fall. that is. Sometimes. This relativity of the triptych. The risingdescending. primacy is* given to the descent. a tendency to equalize at the lowest level. with a passage from one to the other in the triptych? Everything can coexist. It is the descent as the passage ol' sensation. especially in the so-called closed series. Whatever the sensation may be. when confronted with this problem of intensity in the sensation. is not sufficient." what is it that justifies this impression. that plunges. by falling from one level to another. in extension. it is the active that descends. Sensation develops through the fall. even when sensation tends toward a superior or higher level. as in the man at the washbasin |8()| and the man on the toilet in the 1973 triptych [73]. Then they suddenly fell down it was impossible to tell who had been pushed by whom it looked as though it was their hands that had pushed them down. the fall exists to affirm the difference in level as such. the opposition is almost reduced to its direction in space. that is. even if we assign these two terms extremely variable points ol" view that can change for a single painting. Kant laid down mc principle of intensity when he defined it as an "is'antaneously apprehended magnitude: he concluded '"<tt the plurality apprehended in this magnitude could ''"'> be represented by its approximation to negation '•' Consequently. while a common and constant value appears in the attendantrhythm. as well as a dilatation and expansion. But must we still maintain an opposition between the local dilatation of the anus and the local contraction of the throat? Or is the opposition between two distinct contractions. the body descends from the arms and the raised thighs. All tension is experienced in a fall. depending on the part one considers? What presides over the assignation in each case this time seems to be rather simple.Francis liaam freedom. its intensive 81 80 . A discharge. In Bacon. as if it produced an entropy. but there is also a contraction in the discharge. Most artists. depending on the value one considers. On the contrary. seem to have encountered the same response: the difference in intensity is experienced in a fall. Hence the idea of a fight for the fall: Over their heads their hands touched "accidentally. for example. it can make us experience it only 'V the approximation of this superior level to zero. contraction dilatation. rctrogradable in itself. and the opposition can vary or even be reversed depending on the viewpoint one adopts. as a rise? Because the fall must not be interpreted in a thermodynamic manner. is indeed a descent. For some time they both gazed attentively at their joined hands. Why is the difference in level not experienced in the other direction.
1 depend on the character chosen to represent the active rhythm. everything that develops is a fall (there are developments by diminutions). but equally with a contraction or systole. (3) the determination of an actrw rhythm and a passive rhythm. from the viewpoint of both their nature and their relations. and from the Figure to the structure: forces of isolation. •"corporate coupling as a phenomenon. The fall is precisely the active rhythm. which varies from one painting to the other. They do not assign a univocal role to the center panel. whose necessity is grounded in the coexistence of the three panels: (1) the distinction between the three rhythms or the three rhythmic Figures. Sensation is inseparable from the fall that constitutes its most inward movement or "clinamen. It can coincide with a diminution. a dilatation or a dissipation. And the opposable character. 4 Consequently. they are a pari ol this irrational logic. (2) the existence ol a attendant-rhythm. rather. there is a movement between the Figures themselves: forces of coupling that incorporate the phenomena of •solation. The constants they imply change depending on the case at hand. 'nialK. It is in this way that we determine the active rhythm. But the final question that remains is to know which forces correspond to the triptych. We can thus summarize these laws of the triptych. On the '""' hand. what forces are they responding to? In the first place. The intensive fall can thus coincide with a spatial descent. There are so many movements in Bacon's paintings that the law of the triptychs can only be a movement of movements. but also with a rise. They govern extremely variable terms. but equally with an augmentation. These laws have nothing to do with a conscious formula that would simply need to be applied. In short. present in the painting. and dissipation. and 1 ls here that the triptych intervenes: it can. it becomes possible in each painting to determine (through the sensation | what counts as the fall. It can coincide with a diastole. They must not be confused with the order of succession from left to right. there was a double movement. inasmuch as movement is always derived from the forces exerted upon the body. that through which the sensation Ui experienced as living. except for convenience and humor. will assume the role ol' the passive rhythm. it is no longer the Figure that returns to the ' " ' i ' H u e or field. though it might be illustrated more easily in such a context. They are neither simple nor voluntary. The fall is what is most alive in the sensation. bin it operates With other forces and implies other movements. deformation. in the simple paintings. in turn." This idea of the fall implies no context of misery. it is the relations between "gurcs which are violently projected onto the field. But in the second place. and dissipation in their own levels. with all the variations that 11 'hat Is a Triptych. or a state ol complex forces. deformation.Francis Bacon reality is a descent in depth that has a greater or lesser "magnitude. the ever deeper fall of a sensation must not be confused with a fall represented in space. there is a third type of movement and force. failure. or suffering. But just as the violence of a sensation must not be confused with the violence of a represented scene. and 83 . or this logic of sensation. from the structure to the Figure. that constitutes painting." and not a rise. along with the circulation of this attendant throughout the painting (visible attendant and rhythmic attendant). If its laws arc those that we nave just laid out.
a melodic force. but only by introducing between them the distances of a Sahara. when the body is submitted to forces of isolation. which culminate in the triptych. and dissipation. more or less visibly. But on the other hand. The color-fields separate while falling into the white light. deformation. that is. and the frame or borders of a painting no longer refer to the limitative unity of each. and are rarely susceptible to a global "molerisch" treatment. the centuries of an aeon: the triptych and its separated panels. their rhythmic being. very different from the preceding force of isolation. This then is the principle of the triptychs: the maximum unity of light and color for the maximum division of Figures. the 1953 triptych of the head [13] would be one of the rare exceptions. the three canvasses remain separated. it has become a monochromatic eternity. Such was the lesson of Rembrandt: it is light that engenders rhythmic characters. An immense space time unites all things. The triptych. in this sense. there is the fact of the Figure. the result is that the Figures also attain their maximum separation in light and color: a force of separation or division sweeps over them. the second "matter of fact" or the union that separates. 62]. 84 85 .'' This is why the body of the Figure passes through three levels of force. Time is no longer in the chromatism of bodies. First. so that. Finally. the triptych: it is the separation of bodies in universal light and universal color that becomes the common fact of the Figures. in many cases [60. A joining-together separates the Figures and separates the colors such is light." when two Figures are included in a single fact. the separation What Is a Triptych? itself is in the air. composed like triptychs. but they arc no longer isolated. when the body submits to a force of coupling. And in the end. if the unity of light or color immediately incorporates the relationships between the F'igurcs and the field. Everything becomes aerial in these triptychs of light. but to the distributive unity of the three. Then. there are nothing but triptychs in Bacon: even the isolated paintings are. is indeed one way of going beyond "easel" painting. The Figure-beings separate while falling into the black light. a first "matter of fact. We at once realize that the triptychs have need of this luminous or colored vivacity. the Figures look like trapeze artists whose milieu is no longer anything hut light and color.Francis Bacon are now governed by the uniform color or the naked light.
The painter has many things in his head. this reaction is still too intellectual. In the first place. which are a help. by newspapers that arc narrations. a jug or two. and it is even a prerequisite of painting. more than Plato's Idea If Cezanne had been willing to accept his own baroque cliche. phantasms. Figuration exists. to deform or mutilate it. Cliches are always already on the canvas. and determine. or else Sixes him or her no other consolation than parody. clear it. clean it. 87 . so that the painter does not have to cover a blank surface. It seems little. Lawrence wrote some superb passages on this everlenewed experience of Cezanne's: Alter a fight tooth-and-nail for forty years. If the painter were before a white surface. He does not paint in order to reproduce on the canvas an object functioning as a model. Now everything he has in his head or around him is already in the canvas. he or she could reproduce on it an external object functioning as a model. or even the effects of a preparatory work. They are all present in the canvas as so many images.The Painting before Painting . memories. there are figurative givens. We arc besieged by photographs that are illustrations. which are an obstacle. it is a fact. by cinema-images. among these givens. and if the painter is content to transform the cliche. what we have to define are all these "givens" [donnees] that arc on the canvas before the painter's work begins. in order to produce a canvas whose functioning will reverse the relations between model and copy. Cezanne seems to have effectively passed through this dramatic experience at its highest point. but rather would have to empty it out. or in his studio. more or less actually. fully: and.. H. 'That was all he achieved. or around him. it leaves the painter within the milieu of the cliche. more or less virtually. he paints on images that are already there. There arc psychic cliches just as there are physical cliches ready-made perceptions. too abstract: it allows the cliche to rise again from its ashes. Chapter 11 The Painting before Painting Cezanne and the fight against the cliche Bacon and photographs Bacon and probabilities Theory of chance: accidental marks The visual and the manual The status of the figurative It is a mistake to think that the painter works on a white surface. before he begins his work. The figurative belief follows from this mistake. But it is the first step 'hat counts. not quite as fully. and Cezanne's apple is a great deal. But such is not the case. There is a very important experience here for the painter: a whole category of things that could be termed "cliches" already fills the canvas. by television-images. actual or virtual. It is dramatic.. D. his drawing would have in. to manipulate it in every possible way. In short. before the beginning. and he died embittered. he did succeed in knowing an apple.
When' Cezanne did sometimes escape tin. The light with the cliche is the most obvious thing in his pictures. to have gotten somewhere. bitterly. Too many people mistake a photograph for a work of art. His rage with the cliche made him distort the cliche sometimes into parody." and not a critic would have had a word to say about it. because it was still not what he wanted. or worse yet. With men Cezanne often dodged it by insisting on the clothes. those c u r t a i n s . He wank true-to-life representation. . Every man must create it new and different out of himself: new and different. whose last head he could never lop off. a parody for a laugh. This is why great painters are so severe w »th their own work.. it is nothing.. 1 Cliches. and before he could do it he had to light the hydra-headed cliche.. it was cliche. The moment it looks "like" Cezanne. because they can't. And here comes in the comic element in Cezanne's pictures. cliches! The situation has hardly improved since Cezanne. But great painters know that it is not enough to mutilate.very imitator has always made the cliche rise up again. a plagiarism for an au dacity. or a jug or two.. very difficult thing to get representation more true-to-life. . the unreal parts of his pictures . . As Lawrence says... etc. .cliche altogether The Painting before Painting . • • • Here he is inimitable. And once you have got photography." 2 I. those stiff cloth jackets bent into thick folds. The Japanese know that a whole life barely suffices for a single blade of grass.. Not only has there been a multiplication of images of every kind. but even the reactions against cliches are creating cliches. and when it was so mauled that it was all wrong. And it is this dust of battle and Hying of splinters which his imitators still so fervently imitate I am convinced that wha Cezanne himself wanted was representation. a true "'"formation. ready-made cliche object for him. maul. women remained a known. fry as he might. he let it go. and the splinters fly wildly. those blouses. and you can't imitate it. or parody ""' cliche in order to obtain a true laugh. even from what had been freed from the cliche. Even abstract painting has not been the last to produce its own cliches: "all these tubes and corrugated vibrations are stupid enough for anything and pretty sentimental. The fight against cliches is a terrible thing. it is a very. Except with his wife and in his wife he did at least know the appleyness. His imitators imitate his accessories of tablecloths folded like tin. Bacon is as severe with himself as was 88 89 .but they don't imitate the pots and apples. But when his drawing was conventionally all right. and he could not break through the concept obsession to get at the intuitive awareness of her. a miserable M1 "ke of inspiration for a creation. and really give a complete intuitive interpretation of actual objects is in some of the still-life compositions.Francis Bacon been perfectly conventionally "all right. and he was exhausted with it. The dust of battle rises thick. with regard to an apple. around us and in our heads. to Cezanne himself it was mockingly all wrong. So he Hew at it and knocked all the shape and stuffing out of it. as we see in pictures like The Pasha [99] and La Femme |1()()J He wanted to express something. it is already something to have succeeded. those hats. It's the real appleyness. Only he wanted it mor true-to-life.
as soon as the enemy reappeared. and "I regret them. like those of Muybridge. Bacon does not believe they succeed at this. and a large back of a man. should remain of Bacon's work? Some of the series of heads. what we perceive. until finally one sees nothing else:* The photograph "creates" the person or the landscape in the sense that we say that the newspaper creates the event and is not content to narrate it). because he thinks the photograph tends to reduce sensation to a single level. above all. He passes judgment: the series of crucifixions? Too sensational. as in Eisenstein's cinema-images or Mux bridge's photo-images.. But we can already see The Painting before Painting . while also making use of completely different photographs. and like Cezanne.5 But even if it ( <>uld happen. What we see. and compete with painting. his effusion for the photograph. Even the bullfights. even when the photograph 'Ml 'il . he studies photographs of past paintings. or renounced them. and he has an extraordinary passion for photographs of himself. In short. too dramatic.. to come from afar. or one or two jugs. Nothing more than an apple. Like Lucretius's simulacrum. very unsuccessfully to do certain records distorted records" of Velasquez's Pope. are photographs. since he is very sensitive to the fact that they are something. it would only be by means of a transformation of the cliche or. . he paints his portraits from photographs of the model. He therefore does not simply criticize photographs for being figurative or for representing something. Bacon has no intention of reacting against this movement. The series of Popes? "I have tried very.).sc of Eisenstein). pictures from photo-booths. and is unable to include within the sensation the dillcivnce between constitutive levels. We can see how Bacon's problem arises in relation to photography. newspapers).. through analogy or through a code. And no matter how they work... photographs seem to him to cut across ages and temperaments. they themselves are something. thev exist in themselves: they are not only ways of seeing. and not without delight. At ' the same time. and as such. too sensational to be felt. It would not create the kind of deformation that art produces (except in miracles like 'li'.. because I think they're very silly . They can thus lay claim to aesthetic pretensions. threw them away. they are illustrative and narrative reproductions or representations (photographs. he abandons himself to it. in order to fill every room or every brain. he ascribes no aesthetic value to the photograph (he says he prefers photographs that have no ambition in this regard. for the series of heads.Francis Bacon Cezanne. he lost many of his paintings. according to Bacon himself. How are we to explain this attitude? It is due to the fact that the figurative givens are much more complex than they appear to be at first. one or two aerial triptychs. they are what is seen. that they can work in two ways: by resemblance or by convention.). by Wauling the image. on the contrary. that they impose themselves upon sight and rule over the eye completely. as Lawrence said. perhaps. he likes X-rays and medical plates or. and he senses a certain abjection in his own love of the photograph. No doubt they are ways of seeing. . because I think that this thing was an absolute thing. He is truly fascinated by photographs (he surrounds himself with photographs."' What then. The most significant thing about the photograph is that it forces upon us the " t r u t h " of implausible and doctored images.
Many modern or contemporary painters have integrated the photograph into the creative process of painting.1 paint. Consequently. with limits and a center. with abandon) but from which he draws rules for rejection and very precise action. and what hi' has in his head: this or that place becomes privileged in relation to this or that project. twice. one of which is still rejected in the prepictorial stage. . But at that very moment.. For example. Bacon's whole attitude.Francis Bacon ceases to be merely figurative. as so many prepictorial givens: "the will to lose the will" comes first. But even more so. And when Bacon speaks of chance. before the painter set to work. all the places on it seem to be equivalent. and sometimes. to paint a camera that sometimes resembles a prehistoric beast.7 Only when one leaves them behind. This is simply the particular path he follows with regard lo the photograph. This is why. multiply them. sees nothing but imperfect solutions in all these methods: at no point does he ever integrate the photograph into the creative process. Baton does not claim to dictate universal solutions. or else. while the other belongs to the act of painting itself. 6 Now what is striking is that Bacon. how do I proceed so that what I paint does not become a ' '"I"'." And if they arc noi equivalent. for his part. If we consider a canvas before I lie painter begins working. through rejection. sometimes a heavy rifle (like Marey's rifle. which decomposed movement) [61. They did this directly or indirectly. sometimes because they recognized a certain artistic power in photography. For he divides this domain into two parts. because they thought they could avoid the cliche by using the photograph to transform the picture. The greatest transformation of the cliche will not be an act of painting. The Painting before Painting . despite all his abandon. and thus plays the role of an attendant. when it already filled the entire painting. once I have begun. It would be much better to abandon oneself to cliches. it is because the canvas is a welldefined surface. accumulate them.' "Free marks" will have to be made rather quickly "" the image being painted so as to destroy the nascent j •r. especially for him. it depends on what the painter wants to do. 74-). and this prepictorial idea is enough to make the probabilities "ncqual. he does so in much the same way that lie speaks of the photograph: he has a very complex sentimental attitude (here again. it remains figurative as a given. and inspire a practically analogous attitude in Bacon. The painter has a more <>r less precise idea of what he wants to do. as a "perceived thing" the opposite of painting. Bacon has a radical hostility toward the photograph. He often speaks of chance with his friends. the interviews address the question of chance as often as the question of the photograph. Occasionally he is content to paint something that functions as a photograph in relation to the Figure. to collect them.. is one that rejects the photograph. but he seems to have had a hard time making himself understood. more simply. This is because the photograph was much more fascinating. But what appear to be very different givens also seem to manifest themselves on the canvas. one cannot leave the photograph behind or escape from cliches simply by transforming the cliche. after all his reckless abandon. There is thus an entire order of equal and unequal probabilities on the canvas. And it is when the unequal Probability becomes almost a certitude that 1 can begin 1. they are all equally "probable. it will not produce the slightest pictorial deformation. can the work begin.
. For example. and chance. and will extract the improbable Figure from the set of figurative probabilities. and he plays several tables at the same time for example. buf for Bacon. but clearly the same word.. everything changes depending on whether the game invoked is of a combinatorial type (chess) or a "throw-by-throw" type (roulette without a m a r t i n g a l e . abstractly. Hence Bacon's 94 95 . a certain type of act or choice. Iu But what this constitutes is precisely a set of probabilistic visual givens. but she could ""I clo it in fact. because she would not know how to utilize this chance or how to manipulate it.Francis Bacon figuration in it and to give the Figure a chance. nonscientific and not yet aesthetic. to the extent that it consists of manual marks that will reorient the visual whole. And this time. and which concern the dice before they are thrown. a type of choice. to which Bacon can abandon himself all the more insofar as they are prepictorial. It is manipulated chance. that chance becomes pictorial or is " " ' g r a t e d into the act of painting. Bacon is asked if anyone at all. Chance. These marks are accidental. it will be integrated into the act of painting. From start to finish. the complex response is that. accident and chance (in this second sense) will have been an act or a choice. he has been compared with Duchamp. On the other hand. according to Bacon. In themselves. three tables. It explains the mass of misunderstandings that set Bacon against those who speak with him about chance. as opposed to conceived or seen probabilities. they serve no other purpose than to be utilized and rcutilized by the hand of the painter." These marks can be called "nonreprcsentative" precisely because they depend on the act of chance and express nothing regarding the visual image: they only concern the hand of the painter. such as his cleaning woman. prepictorial givens. We believe that this felt distinction between chance and probabilities is very important for Bacon.." no longer designates probabilities. and which distinguishes him from other recent painters who have invoked chance or.I roulette. who let three threads fall on the painted canvas. For first of all. Puis Servien proposed a very interesting theory in which he claimed to dissociate two domains that were usually confused: probabilities. He will use the manual marks to make the visual image of the Figure emerge. art as play. ." It is in the Manipulation. to wrench himself away from the nascent illustration and narration. but now designates a type of choice or action without probability. rather. who will use them to wrench the visual image away from the nascent cliche. on the contrary. or who compare him with other painters. exactly as if he were in front of the three panels of a triptych. is inseparable from a possibility of utilization. "chance. in the reaction of the manual marks on the v i*ual whole. they express a prcpictorial state of the painting. nonpictorial or a-pictorial: it will become pictorial. which designates. which is the improbable itself. the cleaning woman could do it in principle. and fixed them exactly when. more generally.thc\ feU [ 103]. would be capable of making random marks or not. For Bacon. and will not be integrated into the act of painting.' 1 Here is an original conception that seems to be spontaneously close to Bacon's. which are givens. To take another example. this is nothing more than an set of probabilistic. it is a matter The Painting before Painting . yes. the chance choice made at each move is. the objects of a possible science. which arc not part of the act of painting. "by chance".
it still narrates something. he enters into the cliche. As Lawrence said. Bacon can have the same attitude toward both cliches and probabilities: a reckless. . in what the painter wants to do. Between what the painter wants to do and what he or she does there was necessarily •' know-how. It is the way of the Figure. There is a first. he does not know how to do what he wants to do. The painter's problem is not how to enter into the canvas. abandon. no accident except a "utilized" accident. a smiling man. getting out of probability (the pictorial task). with every moment of every painting." but for not being faithful enough. this time as a result of the Figure.Francis Bacon I obstinate insistence. that there is no chance except "manipulated" chance. not for being too faithful or "true-to-life. as an effect of the pictorial act. . though not a certitude. . which would still imply a maximum probability. For the pure presence of the Figure is indeed the reconstitution of a representation.. a Pope that screams or smiles . 1 3 He will only get there by getting out of the canvas. the recreation of a figuration ("this is a seated man. a snare. almost hysterical. but how to get out of it. He enters into it precisely because he knows what he wants to do. a deformation in place. in the form of cliches and probabilities. before the painter begins. perseverance.. The Canvas is already so full that the painter must enter into the canvas. but what saves him is the fact that he does not know how to get there. ) . will produce the 96 97 . And these two figurations the figuration conserved despite everything and the recovered figuration." A probable visual whole (first figuration) has been disorganized and deformed by free manual trails which. |)Ut we never cease to trip over the objection of fact: the Figure is still figurative. even if it is a surrealistic tale (head umbrella meat." But there is a second figuration: the one that the painter obtains. One can light against the cliche only with much guile. This first figuration cannot be completely eliminated. a "how to. the first figuration (the photograph) should be criticized. and prudence: it is a task perpetually renewed with every painting. a seated man). . the false fidelity and the true do not have the same nature. since he turns this abandon into a ruse. despite the incomprehension of his interlocutors. the manual marks could easily add nothing. " ) . But if there is a chance. oppose the figural to the figurative in an abstract manner. the emergence in place "I the Figure: the pictorial act. And the reckless abandon comes down to this: the painter himself must enter into the canvas before beginning. and definitively botch the painting. howling meat . and into probability. Between the two a leap in place is produced. prepictorial figuration: it is on the canvas and in the painter's head. they fill it. 12 In short. something of it is always conserved. before the painter's work begins. It is the chance manual marks that will give him a chance. since he is already there (the prepictorial task). Cliches and probabilities are on the canvas. thereby getting out of the cliche. For it is easy to The Painting before Painting . by being reinjected into the whole. and yet is not practically compromised or even attenuated by this relationship. In this way. it still represents someone (a screaming man. In fact. they must fill it. in order to constitute a Figure that has finally become pictorial. it is because they work by extracting the visual whole from its figurative state. We can now say that the opposition of the Figure to the figurative exists in a very complex inner relationship.
There is thus a preparatory work that belongs to painting fully. diagram. and manual space . but does not resemble. and in the painter himself. An entire battle takes place on the canvas between the painter and these givens. from various 11 98 99 . Bacon does not make sketches). and ''"' act of painting itself appears as an afterward. it is constantly oscillating between a beforehand and an afterward: the hysteria of painting Everything is already on the canvas. What does this act of painting consist of? Bacon defines in this way: make random marks (lines-traits). They say that the painter is already in the canvas. Mv "'<-p. the figuration from which it came. out of which the Figure will emerge into view Chapter 12 The Diagram The diagram in Bacon (traits and color-patches)1 Its manual character Painting and the experience of catastrophe Abstract painting. throw the paint. figuration recovers and recreates. before the act of painting begins. and yet precedes the act of painting. This preparatory work can be done in sketches. though it need not be. Hence Bacon's constant formula: create resemblance. The act of painting is the unity of these free manual traits and their effect upon and reinjection into the visual whole. 2 This preparatory work is invisible and silent. or wipe the canvas in order to clear out locales or Zones color-patches). scrub. but through accidental and nonresembling means. and optical space Action painting. where he or she encounters all the figurative and probabilistic givens that occupy and preoccupy the canvas. code. Hence the work of the painter is shifted back and only comes later. 15 So the act of painting is always shifting. yet extremely intense. an apres'""/> "'hysteresis'*) in relation to this work. By passing through these traits. afterward: manual labor. and in any case sketches do not replace it (like many contemporary painters.What Bacon dislikes about both these ways We do not listen closely enough to what painters have to say.Francis Bacon improbable visual Figure (second figuration).
it is all the more important for the traits and color-patches to break with figuration. broom. a rhinoceros skin: such is the suddenly outstretched diagram. botch it." They mark out Possibilities of fact."1' Because they are destined to give us the Figure. were suddenly inserted into the head. There are two ways in which the painting can fail: once visually and once manually. it is to introduce "possibilities of fact.Francis Bacon angles and at various speeds. a catastrophe overcame the canvas. as Cezanne said. the head: part of it will be cleared away with a brush. is to be "suggestive. These almost blind manual marks attest to the intrusion of another world into the visual world of figuration. They arc traits of sensation. and micrometric. They are nonrepresentative. that we bring with us at birth). it is as if the unit of measure were changed. One ran remain entangled in the figurative givens and the optical organization of representation. more or less virtual. presuppose that there were already figurative givens on the canvas (and in the painter's head). but it is precisely through the action of ln «se marks that the visual whole will cease to be an 100 101 . either by being wiped. free. random. to use language similar to Wittgenstein's. This is what Bacon calls a " g r a p h " or a diagram: it is as if a Sahara. 5 The diagram is thus the operative set of asignifying and nonrepresentative lines and zones. they are manual traits. linestrokes and color-patches. accidental. a mouth: it will be elongated. This is why they are not sufficient in themselves. nonillustrative. or the turning point of the painting. as if in a catastrophe. it is as if a piece of rhinoceros skin. or even cosmic. stick. or rubbed. They are no longer either significant or signifiers: they are asignifying traits. in order to evolve into a Figure. a zone of the Sahara. It is like the emergence ol' another world. It is as if the hand assumed an independence and began to be guided by other forces. brush. a chaos. its function. stretched from one side of the head to the other." Or. Now this act.). so overload it that it is rendered inoperative (which is another way of remaining in the figurative: one will have simply mutilated or mauled the cliche. but must be "utilized.. were stretched over it. but one can also spoil the diagram. It is here that the painter works with a rag. brushed. but do not yet constitute a fact the Pictorial fact). or sponge. they must be reinjected into "' visual whole. For example. it is as if the two halves of the head were split open by an ocean. In order to be converted into a fact. more or less actual. units were substituted for the figurative unit. more rigorously. This is the act of painting. it is here that he throws the paint with his hands. but of confused sensations (the confused sensations. or else covered over. in the midst of the figurative and probabilistic givens. To a certain extent. or rag. And above all. It is precisely these givens that will be removed by the act of painting. making marks that no longer The Diagram depend on either our will or our sight.. And the operation of the diagram. are irrational. or these acts. The painter's hand intervenes in order to shake its own dependence and break up the sovereign optical organization: one can no longer see anything. viewed under a microscope. sponge. they remove the painting from the optical organization that was already reigning over it and rendering it figurative in advance. these traits. It is as if. involuntary. says Bacon. 3 A Sahara. For example. nonnarrative. For these marks.
is the set of straight and curved hatch mark* that raise and lower the ground. Abstract optical s Pace has no need of the tactile connections that classical 102 103 . Such an abstraction is essentially seen. a catastrophe." and the chance that this gray point will "leap over itself' and unlock dimensions oi sensation " Of all the arts. Van Gogh's diagram. it raises itself above the figurative givens. but it is a germ of rhythm in relation to the new order of the painting. In fact. But painters pass through the catastrophe themselves. and the relation of this order with this chaos. Paul Rice's "chaos." integrates its own catastrophe. It is what makes the '"nn a properly visual transformation. The diagram is the operative set of traits and color patches." and the chance that this abyss will give way to rhythm. a spiritual salvation. and attempt to emerge from it. One is tempted to say of abstract painting what Peguy said of Kantian morality: it has pure hands. Through an intense spiritual effort. make the sky palpitate. This is not a psychological experience. This is because the abstract forms are part of " new and purely optical space that no longer even needs to be subordinate to manual or tactile elements. and in their evaluation of the pictorial order to come. As Bacon says. but it also turns chaos into a simple stream we must cross in order to discover the abstract and signifying Forms. It retains a kind of oscillation from this leap. It is a kind of experience that is constantly renewed by the most diverse painters: Cezanne's "abyss" or "catastrophe. we might perhaps distinguish three great paths. thej are distinguished from simple geometrical forms by "tension": tension is what internalizes in the visual the manual movement that describes the form and the invisible forces that determine it. and consequently is constituted as a The Diagram llight in advance. it will give the eye another power. The diagram is indeed a chaos. Painters here confront the greatest of dangers both for their work and for themselves. Where painters differ is in their manner of embracing this nonfigurative chaos." the vanishing "gray point. and which assume a particular intensity from 1888 onward. but each of which designates a " m o d e r n " function of painting. immense influence on the psychic life of the painter. the catastrophe is only associated. but it is also a germ of order or rhythm.Francis Bacon optical organization. or expresses what painting claims to bring to "modern m a n " (Why still paint today?). In this respect. where he or she no longer sees anything and risks foundering: the collapse of visual coordinates. for example. "hysterically. as well as an object that will no longer be figurative." 7 The diagram ends the preparatory work and begins the act of painting. Not only can we differentiate diagrams. but a properly pictorial experience. Mondrian's square leaves the figurative landscape) and leaps over chaos. In the other arts. of lines and zones. painting is undoubtedly the only one that necessarily. but it lias no hands. embrace the chaos. but we can also date the diagram of a painter. but it is a path that reduces the abyss or chaos (as well as the manual) to a minimum: it offers us an asceticism. Abstraction would be one of these paths. each of which groups together very different painters. it "unlocks areas of sensation. although it can have an. It is a violent chaos in relation to the figurative givens. twist the trees. because there is always a moment when the painter confronts it most directly. There is no painter who has not had this experience of the chaos-germ.
which will perhaps be made up exclusively of the horizontal and the vertical. Restore to man a pure and internal optical space. according to Kandinsky. A second path. we will find them every time a great painter of the past stopped painting things in order "to paint between things. The incomparable discovery of this kind of painting i s The Diagram that of a line (and a patch of color) that does not form a contour." not in the sense of the manual. "Modern man seeks rest because he is deafened by the external "'" The hand is reduced to a linger that presses on an internal optical keyboard. which abandons us to its lineaments and granulations. exclusively manual. The Painting thus becomes a catastrophe-painting and a diagram-painting at one and the same time. It replaced the diagram with a code.Francis Bacon representation was still organizing. of this radical manner of escaping the figurative. but passes between points. but also the power of an explosive line without outline or contour. there were nomadic lines without contour next to abstract geometric lines. Morris Louis's stain. neither concave nor convex: Pollack's line. the diagram merges with the totality of the painting. vertical white-activity." It is the code that is responsible for answering the question of painting today: What can save man from "'the abyss. Optical geometry disappears in favor of a manual line. From this point of view."" Turner's late watercolors conquer not only all the forces of impressionism. at the opposite extreme of abstraction. since its line still delimited an outline. this line-trait and this color-patch will be pushed to their functional limit: no longer the transformation of the form but a decomposition of matter. the unequal thickness of the two sides of the square opened up a virtual diagonal without contours. often named abstract expressionism or art informed oilers an entirely diflcrent response. which makes the painting itself an unparalleled catastrophe (rather than illustrating the catastrophe romantically). in absolute proximity. but in the sense of a linger that counts. But it follows that what abstract painting elaborates is less a diagram than a symbolic code. Moreover. This time the abyss or chaos is deployed to the maximum. The eye has difficulty following it. '"Digits" are the units that group together visually the terms in opposition. becoming adequate to the entire surface. and so on. Abstract painting took the elaboration of such a properly pictorial code very far (as in Auguste Herbin's "plastic alphabet. horizontal blackinertia. This time. is this not one of the most prodigious constants of painting that is here being selected and isolated? In Kandinsky. This code is "digital. and attains a power greater than 1. continually changing direction. Somewhat like a map that is as large as the country. a man without hands. It is the northern stain. we can see how abstract painting remained figurative. and in Mondrian. neither inside nor outside. the entire painting is diagrammatic. the "Gothic line": the line does not go from one point to another. it ls •" i lie point closest to catastrophe. If we seek the precursors of this new path." from external tumult and manual chaos:' Open up a spiritual state for the man of the future. But with Pollack. From this is derived a conception of binary choice that is opposed to random choice. '"•it modern man discovers rhythm: we can easily see how "''•s response to the question of a "modern" function of 104 105 . that delimits nothing.! in which the distribution of forms and colors can be done according to the letters of a word). Thus. on the basis of great formal oppositions.
forms and grounds. and not only in the relationship 107 .11 These arc no longer the tactile referents of vision. surfaces that are "more" than surfaces. unstretched. which still conveyed the subordination of the hand to the requirements of an optical organization. precisely because it is the manual space of what is seen. and even any visual control. There has been a conversion from the horizon to the ground: the optical horizon reverts completely to the tactile ground. peculiar to "modern man. The diagram expresses the entire painting at once. exclusively optical. to the ground. By liberating a space that is (wrongly) claimed to be purely optical. in classical threedimensional representation. the optical catastrophe and the manual rhythm. an ambiguity of words. But action painting docs something completely different: it reverses the classical subordination. For the ( asi ' 'l was a decisive clement not only in the maintenance of a figurative appearance.a space that is imposed upon the eye as an absolutely foreign power in which the eye can find no rest. rags. 1 3 It is all the more curious that the American critics. it imposes the hand on the eye. The painter's instruments are no longer the paintbrush and the easel. which is no longer stretched on an easel but nailed. but." 12 from one edge of the painting to the other. man discovers rhythm as matter and material. over the painting in the process of being executed (the blindness of the painter). but a manual power that is spread out "all over. (3) the elaboration of lines that are "more" than lines. it subordinates the eye to the "and.Francis Bacon painting is different from that given by abstraction. volumes that are "'less'" than volumes (Carl Andre's planar sculptures. conversely. The current evolution of abstract expressionism is completing this process by realizing what was still little more than a metaphor in Pollock: (1) the extension of the diagram to the spatial and temporal whole of the painting displacement of the "beforehand" and the "afterward"). could have defined it as the creation of a purely optical space. syringes: action painting." This seems to us to be a quarrel over words. Christian Bonnefoi's strata). made it possible to see depths and contours. sponges. what they meant was that the pictorial space lost all the imaginary tactile referents which. a violence done to the eye. and makes use of sticks. of the manual to the visual. Martin Bane's laminated works. Robert Ryman's libers. or rather in the painting. (2) the abandonment of any visual sovereignty. Here it is no longer an inner vision that gives us the infinite. the abstract expressionists in fact did nothing other than to make visible an exclusively manual space. In the unity of the catastrophe and the diagram. and the "gcsturality" of the color . One of the most profound tendencies of modern Painting is the tendency to abandon the easel. who 106 The Diagram look the analysis of abstract expressionism very far. and it replaces the •'"rizon with a ground. In the end. it was abstract painting that produced a purely optical space. The hand is liberated. defined by the "planarity" of the canvas. the "impenetrability" of the painting. But these tactile referents of classical representation expressed a relative subordination of the hand to the eye. and suppressed tactile referents in favor of an eye of the mind: '• suppressed the task of controlling the hand that the eye s 'ill had in classical representation. that is. In effect. the "frenetic dance" of the painter around the painting. or.
This time sensation is indeed attained. in one way or another. This is no longer an easel painting. or to the power and mystery of the line without contour.stick. the essential reality of the fall. and explain why Bacon personally took neither of these paths. Bacons triptych form is one of these ways. by making "all over" paintings." but according to Bacon. that is.I-rim. namely. the direct action upon the nervous system. he is not attracted to paintings that tend to substitute a visual and spiritual code for the involuntary diagram (even if there is an exemplary attitude on the part of the artist). rag. and abandons the easel in order to become mural painting. 16 On the other hand. In Bacon. perspective ." All the violent methods of action painting . by rediscovering the secret of the "Gothic line" (in Worringer's sense). he says. This is because the diagram covers the entire painting. and by opposing to the organic notions of symmetry and center the power of a mechanical repetition elevated to intuition. On the one hand. which must create its own relations with the divisions of the "room" in which it will be hung. The code is inevitably cerebral and lacks sensation. by tracing lines that cross the entire painting and that start and continue oil" the frame. . as we have seen. brush. and the diverse ways this tendency is realized. broom. rather than claiming to pass judgment. by restoring an entire world of equal probabilities. simply indicate what was not right for him. 1 ' 1 But in truth there are many ways of breaking with the easel. He thinks that in this domain of the irrational trait and the line without 108 109 . Bacon is not drawn to abstract expressionism.are let loose in a catastrophepainting. what is true of the triplychs is also true of each independent painting. but it "mains in an irremediably confused state. This uniting separating is Bacon's technical solution. In this sense. the code can easily become a simple symbolic coding of the figurative. and distinguishes them from the techniques of The Diagram abstract and informal painting. the necessity of" ">nlining it to certain areas of the painting and certain ""'incuts of the act of painting. By internalizing tension in the optical form. very different from the two preceding ways. In an abstraction off Mondrian's type. is Bacon between the painter and Nature (the search for a motif). composed like a triptych. but a ground painting (true easels have no other horizon than the ground). and even pastry bag . abstract painting neutralized it. Mondrian's painting is not decorative but architectonic. Bacon will "ever stop speaking of the absolute necessity of preventing the diagram from proliferating. though they continue to separate and divide. and because its proliferation creates a veritable "mess. In the triptych. ) . which brings his entire set of techniqtWj into play. the painting ceases to be an organism or an isolated organization in order to become a division of its own surface. tension is what abstract painting lacks the most. What matters today is less the fact does the painter still have an easel? than the tendency. Are these three ways of once again becoming "gothic"? The important question is: Why did Bacon not become involved in either of the two preceding paths? The severity of his reactions. Kandinsky defined abstract painting by "tension. which is always. but also in the delimitation (frame and borders) and internal organization of the painting depth. the borders of each of the three panels cease to isolate. Pollock and others explicitly reject the easel in a completely different manner. . because it is abstract.Finally.
the precision of the sensation. Bacon returns to a localization of random traits and scrubbed zones.Francis Bacon contour. And in his subsequent period. It is out of chaos that "'c "stubborn geometry" or "geologic lines" first emerge. avoiding both the code and its scrambling Must we then speak of wisdom or classicism? It is hard to believe. he invented a specific way. and the necessary catastrophe must not submerge the whole. Bacon thus follows a third path. it functions like a local "whiplash" that makes us emerge from the catastrophe rather than submerging us further. one finishes a painting with a spurt of paint. the fight against the cliche. however. Chapter 13 Analog)) Cezanne: the motif as diagram The analogical and the digital Painting and analogy The paradoxical status of abstract painting The analogical language of Cezanne. the preparatory work (all the more necessary in •hai we are no longer "innocent"). should emerge from the diagram and make the sensation clear and precise. To emerge from the catastrophe. or variations of a dark color-patch functioning as a curtain? But even then. It must remain operative and controlled. and mass Modulation Resemblance recovered There would thus be a tempered use of the diagram. 1 It is thus a temporal diagram. A line that delimits nothing still has a contour or outline itself. a kind of middle way in which the diagram is not reduced to the state of a code. but instead gave them a power OP vibration and nonloealization (the mouth that smiles or screams). as an afterthought. Chaos and 1 atastrophe imply the collapse of all the figurative givens. and above all. Not all the figurative givens have to disappear. the clarity of the Figure. Even if. which is neither optical like abstract painting. The diagram is a possibility o fact . and the rigor of the contour continued to act beneath the color-patch or the traits which did not efface the former. with 110 I 111 . and yet does not cover the entire painting. that Cezanne followed a middle way. while fighting 1(1 limit and control it at any price.. 17 Save the contour nothing is more important for Bacon than this. a new figuration. that o" the Figure. and of Bacon: plane. distinct from the two preceding ones.18 The diagram must not eat away at the entire painting.it is not the fact itself. nor manual like action painting. Few painters have produced the experience of chaos and catastrophe as intensely. Blake at least understood this. precisely because he remained a master of the diagram. The violent methods must not he given free reign. Michaux went further than Pollock. Rather.ll| d ibis geometry or geology must in turn pass through 1 '"' catastrophe in order for colors to arise.. and thus they already entail a fight.1'1 Could we at least say that during the "malerisch" period the diagram covered the whole painting? Had not the entire surface of the painting been lined with traits of grass.. . for the earth to llM ' inward the sun. it must remain limited in space and time. color.
) . is not enough to make a motif: the sensation." one has the impression that abstract painters would be wrong to see this as a blessing not only because Cezanne puts the emphasis on volumes. but in reference to the basic units of a code. but above all because he suggests a completely different use of geometry than that of a code of painting. For if geometry is not a part of painting. and at the same time the sensation must be given duration and clarity. More generally. . But the diagram connects these two moments indissolubly: the geometry is its "frame" and color is the sensation. which consists of expressive movements. One might even wonder if painting has not always been the analogical language par excellence. that •maud's theater elevated scream-breaths to the state of language. on the contrary. there are nonetheless properly pictorial uses of geometry.' not in direct reference to the hand. some angles. T w o questions follow from this: What makes this relation within the motif or diagram possible (possibility of fact)? And how is this relation constituted when it emerges from the diagram (the fact itself)? The first question concerns use. and it is an analogical language. Once again. is already just that: it is the outcome. breaths and screams. and sensation to duration and clarity. however. It is in this sense. for example. the cone. putting the whole in perspective. But there is no doubt. urges the painter to "treat nature through the cylinder. and not a digital use." The diagram is exactly what Cezanne called the motif. inasmuch as they have completely internalized the manual movement that produces them. It is their intertwining. the "coloring sensation. this operation that relates geometry to the sensible. lacking duration and clarity (hence the critique of impressionism). They still form a code of painting. except the cube. the sphere. these basic units or elementary visual forms are indeed aesthetic and not mathematic.' The cylinder is this stovepipe (emerging from the tinsmith's hands) or this man (whose arms do not matter . which belong to a 'ullereiu domain: rather we are essentially concerned 112 11:5 . One can question whether or not this is a language properly speaking. . painting elevates colors and fines to the state of language." it is said. belongs to the right hemisphere of the brain or. that we must understand Serusicr's saving: "Synthesis consists in reducing all forms to the smallest number of Analogy forms of which we are capable of thinking . even a coloring sensation. The diagram or motif would be analogical. whereas the code is digital. The geometry must be made concrete or felt. A sensation.Analogical language would be a language of relations. In effect. But the frame suffices even less: it is abstract. "Analogical language. whereas "digital language" belongs to the left hemisphere. oral point of view. We called one of these uses "digital. better. the result. Following current terminology. is ephemeral and confused. we could sa\ that Cezanne creates an analogical use of geometry. paralinguistic signs. Or rather. close to abstract painting. When Cezanne. *> hen we speak of analogical language in animals. we do " " | consider their possible songs.Francis Bacon two moments.straight lines. 2 Only then will something emerge from the motif or diagram. the motif is made up of two things: the sensation and the frame. and turn painting into a code. to the nervous system. ." Synthesis is thus an analytic of elements. arcs of the circle and the ellipse. and so on.
Finally. On the contrary. The fact that these relations play within a margin of error great enough for the image to present significant differences from the original object does not negate the fact that these differences are attained by a loose resemblance. one says that resemblance is ilie product when it appears abruptly as the result of relations that are completely different from those ii is supposed to reproduce: resemblance then emerges as the brutal product of nonrcsembling means. one can still distinguish two forms of it. sometimes decomposed in its operation. The very existence of painting would be enough to confirm the necessity of a lengthy apprenticeship for the analogical to become language. and combinations of conventional units. even when analogy is independent of cvci'V code. Thus we cannot be content with saying that analogical language proceeds by resemblance. analogy is figurative. the photograph. and lines (attitudes. i" which the code reconstituted a resemblance as a function of its own internal elements. sometimes transformed in its result. the relations to be reproduced are instead produced directly by completely different relations. depending on whether the resemblance is the producer or lilt' product. that is. For one can do at least three things with a code. although it is a different type of apprenticeship than the acquisition of the digital. One can also make a combination which will yield a "message" or a "narrative". One could then define the analogical by a certain obviousness or "evidence. Resemblance is the producer when the relations between the elements of one thing pass directly into die elements of another thing. creating a resemblance through nonrcsembling "leans. whereas the digital operates through code. then. or analogy by produced resemblance. which captures relations of light. In this last type of analogy. which will have an isomorphic relation to a referential set. In this case. Now our first temptation." by a certain presence that makes itself felt immediately. which would be to define the digital by convention.4 It seems. whereas the digital needs to be learned. convention. despite all its ambitions. is obviously ill founded. postures). But this is no better.for example. A scream no more resembles what it signals than a word resembles what it designates. and in every instance where one could speak of "making a shorthand of figuration"!. one can code the extrinsic elements in such a way that they would be reproduced in an autonomous manner by the intrinsic elements of the code in portraits produced by a computer. The photograph can rarely escape this limit. Bui conversely. for the analogical requires an apprenticeship as well. a sensible resemblance 114 I 115 . and resemblance remains primary in principle. We have already seen an instance of this in one of the analogies oi the code. The question therefore cannot be decided by appealing to a clear-cut theory. that a digital code covers Analogy certain forms of similitude or analogy: analogy by isomorphism. One can make an intrinsic combination of abstract elements. variable colors. which then becomes die image of the first . but must be made the object of practical studies which the status of painting depends). even in animals. for instance. whereas now. and the analogical by similitude or resemblance. But in that case.Francis Bacun with cries. ii uas only because the relations to be reproduced had themselves already been coded. in the absence of any code.
which is produced on a separate plane. Abstract painting consequently poses a very particular problem. 11 assumes its complete independence with II*. Peine first defined icons by similitude. since instead of being opposed to analogy. Analogical synthesizers arc "modular": they establish an immediate connection between heterogeneous elements.""' But it is still dillicult to explain what an analogical diagram is." In short. afl Opposed to a digital or symbolic code. And in another way. it is perhaps the notion of modulation in general (and not similitude) that will enable us to understand the nature of analogical language or the diagram. Digital synthesizers. It has a status that borders on the impossible. but grounds itself in a ." "low-pass" . rather than being used or treated. I his lime. 7 Analogy will pass through a code rather than passing through a diagram." through sensation. but instead of being produced symbolically. it takes the diagram for the analogical flux itself. it is produced "sensually. filler to the next are intensive subtractions. on a field o\ presence or finite plane whose moments are all actual and sensible. Ii is thus a paradoxical code. on the contrary. 117 . flic •"middle" way. through the detour of the code. in which there is neither primary resemblance nor prior code. perhaps art informel also borders on the impossible. are "integral": their operation passes through a codification. and symbols by a conventional rule. whereas the analogical filter usually acts through the subtraction of frequencies 'high-pass. . The primary function of the filter is to modify the basic color of a sound. which means that they do not simply apply to painting a code that would be external to it.scrambling. In his great semiological theory. . Painting is the analogical art par excellence. What is added from one Analogy . But he acknowledged that conventional symbols are composed of icons (by virtue of phenomena of isomorphism). for by extending the diagram to the entire painting. rather than making the llux pass through the diagram. through a homogenization and binarization of the data. ) . is one that makes l|M " of die diagram in order to constitute an analogical language. and consist of "diagrams. implying operations of homogenization and binarization that are constitutive of a digital code. they introduce a literally unlimited possibility of connection between these elements. and that pure icons range far beyond qualitative similitude. it is as if the diagram were directed toward '•self. on the contrary. Abstract painting obviously proceeds by code and program. and whose sound will only be produced as the result of »' conversion translation. and which is both nonligurative and noncodilied. and it is thus an addition of subtractions that constitutes modulation and sensible movement as a fall. Today we can relate it to the sonorous example of synthesizers. It no longer goes wyond itself in a code. or finds its own language: by passing through a diagram. infinite in principle. The name "aesthetic Analogy" must be reserved for this last eminent type. it takes analogy as its object. to constitute or vary its limbic.Francis Hacon is produced. it is the digital expression of the analogical as such. A second difference appears at the level of filters. It is even the form through which analogy becomes a language. they elaborate an intrinsically pictorial code. however. But digital filters proceed by an additive synthesis of elementary codified formants. Bui the abstractionists often happen to be great painters.
are connected and even merged in depth. or armatures that are perpendicular to the bodies: it is the whole modulation that changes nature. structures." It is this type of depth that Bacon achieves. and the body. starting with the diagram. which exceeds the organism and destroys the formbackground relationship. and above all. but also the contrast of values). and at the same time. they are in a state of perpetual fall. the planes. In what sense is Bacon Cezannean. and the contrast of shadow and light. 1 " Finally. but the "place" of a force). sometimes by joining the vertical and horizontal planes. must maintain their junction. modulation must find its true meaning and technical formula as the law of Analogy. as in the malerisch period where. It must act as a variable and continuous mold. as we have seen. painting has three dimensions: the planes. By substituting Analogy for relations of value a juxtaposition of tints brought together in the order of the spectrum. the Reformation of bodies is very different. Now this liberation can occur only by passing through the catastrophe. It is called a "middle" way only from a very external point of view. of the planes. the verticals of the curtain cut through the horizontals of the blinds. but also through the large surfaces or fields which imply axes.8 It is through such a system that geometry becomes sensible. and of color (for what enslaves color is not only the contour. which is not simply opposed to relief in chiaroscuro. chiaroscuro. the connection or junction of planes (primarily of the vertical plane and the horizontal plane). as a function of a point of imbalance or a fall. in order for it to succeed in producing a more profound resemblance. which replaces perspective. and especially the horizontal and the vertical planes. one has passed from the possibility of fact to the Fact. As an analogical language. the modulation of color. In order for the rupture with figurative resemblance to avoid perpetuating the catastrophe. for example. but invents a new type of relief through color. the mass and declination of the body. Or. There is a triple liberation here of the body. the treatment of color not only passes through "he modulated flat patches of color (smooth planes \»ic'/ilat. a contraction through which everything is restored to the body. 118 119 . as in his works of radical precision. following Bacon's formula. the body's mass musi integrate the imbalance in a deformation neitiier transformation nor decomposition. color. In the same way. colors become confused and no longer delimit an object.Francis Bacon Cezanne. to the mass. the planes collide with each other. and sensations become clear and durable: one lias "realized" the sensation. And perhaps this modulation of color is Cezanne's principal operation. that is. through the diagram and its involuntary irruption: bodies are thrown oil balance. and in what sense does he have nothing to do with Cezanne? The enormity of their differences is obvious. from the diagram to the painting. says Cezanne. which tends to suppress relations of value. inherited from the postcubism of Picasso and Braque (and which one finds elsewhere in abstract expressionism). and sometimes by merging them. since it implies just as much radical invention and destruction of figurative coordinates as the other ways. modulation will define a double movement of expansion and contraction an expansion in which the planes. T h e depth where the planes are joined is no longer the strong depth of Cezanne but a "shallow" or "superficial" depth.s\i dial envelop the bodies.
The diagram. The diagram and its involuntary Analogy manual order will have been used to break all the figurative coordinates. but in a relation of coexistence or proximity modulated by color. The contour can even have a separate existence. they arc turned into colors. But "colorism" is not opposed to relief. the Figure. The conic scream that combines with the verticals. Analogy finds its highest law in the treatment of colors. fA liberating lines for the armature and colors for modulation. and the extended triangular smile that merges with the horizontals. and the contour. are the true "motifs" of this painting. that is. which lind their effective convergence in color. One consequence of this is that even black and white are liberated. but it is through this very action when it is operative) that it defines possibilities of fact. But where Bacon docs remain Cczannean is in the extreme elaboration of painting as analogical language. the agent of analogical language. This is why Bacons three elements were the structure or armature. in the open world of Cezanne (Nature) and in the closed world of Bacon. to produce the new resemblance inside the visual whole. even the distribution of rhythms in the triptychs has nothing to do with a code. 120 121 . a double movement is produced: a flat extension toward the armature and a voluminous contraction toward the body. And through the membrane of the contour.Francis Bacon insofar as the forces that are exerted upon bodies. becoming the common limit of the armature and the body-mass. of light and shadow. This treatment is opposed to relations of value. Lines and colors are then able to constitute the Figure or the Fact. which is diffused throughout all the ranges of color. are not the same. where the diagram must operate and be realized. But it is this kind of painting in its entirety which is a scream and a smile: that is to say. To be sure. of chiaroscuro. does not act as a code. because the latter are no longer in a relationship of form to ground. analogical. nor even to a drawn contour. but as a modulator. so that black shadows acquire a real presence and white light accpiircs an intense clarity.
2 1 'hrough the centuries. that sculpture had tempted him a great deal. and of essence that inspires Egyptian bas-relief. |4) It is the rectilinear contour. or regular curve. (5) It is thus a geometry of the plane. (2) It is a frontal and close view that assumes this haptie function. the contour. a closed unity that is shielded from all accident. essence acquires a formal and linear presence that dominates the flux of existence and representation. furthermore. that isolates the form as an essence. function: it thereby ensures. it is also the animal and the vegetal. the form and the ground as two equally close sectors lying on the same plane. (3) What separates and unites both the form and the ground is the contour as their common limit. which arc raised to their perfect geometrical form. which allows the eye to function like the sense of touch. the extreme proximity of the Eigure presence). there are many things that make Bacon an Egyptian: the fields. or rather haptie. he says something curious. equally close to each other and to ourselves. "1 could never dissociate myself from the great European images of the past and by 'European' I mean to include Egyptian. it conl'eis. by erecting a Eigure that only reveals to us the unitary surface of isosceles triangles on clearly limited sides. and declares his love for Egyptian sculpture: like Rodin. or eternity are the primary characteristics of the work of art (which even the photograph lacks). and indeed imposes. the optic and the haptie Glory to the Egyptians. in the Egyptian "will to art. even if the geographers wouldn't agree with me.. change. And when he considers his own painting. he thinks that durability. of the line. upon the eye a tactile.Every Painter Recapitulates the History of Painting Chapter 14 Every Painter Recapitulates the History of Painting in His or Her Own Way . essence. Alois Riegl defined it as follows: i 1) Bas-relief brings about the most rigid link between the eye and the hand because its element is the flat surface. and corruption. the system of clarity \nettete'\. (6) It is not only man and the world that in this way receive their planar or linear essence. Egypt and haptie presentation Essence and accident Organic representation and the tactile optical world Byzantine art: a pure optical world? Gothic art and the manual Light and color. whose very mystery is the mystery of essence. Bacon renders in Egypt the homage of the sphinx [ 18]. but also that he realized that what he •Npected from sculpture was exactly what he had 122 123 . sinc< the form and the ground lie on the same fit arte of the surface.. that is. namely. but it will also incorporate volume by covering the funerary cube with a pyramid. deformation. the sphinx and the lotus." 1 Can the Egyptian assemblage be taken as the point of departure for Western painting? It is an assemblage of bas-relief even more than of painting." the joining together of the two senses of touch and sight. like the soil and the horizon.
but it incorporates the accident into an optical organization that makes it something well founded (a phenomenon) or a "manifestation"" of essence. light and shadow fill up space and make it rhythmic. the handle of a knife ready to become detached. and a perspective traverses them in depth. descended. If we can speak of a classical representation. 1 What kind of sculpture was he thinking of? A sculpture that would have included the three pictorial elements: the armature-ground. to a fundamental deformation. We only took Christianity as a first point of reference which it would be necessary to look beyond. the painter can easily be indifferent to the religious subject he is asked lo represent. and even replaced. but it thereby belongs eminently to Western painting.r >jcct. an overturned cup. the Figure-form. or close by him: Christ is besieged. the form can become not a Cod on the cross. and certainly painting. something in between sculpture and painting.Francis Bacon succeeded in doing in painting. crucified. He specifies that the Figure.**' All of this can be put on Christ Every Painter Recapitulates the History of Painting himself. but as an accident. the accident. There is always a fall. Yet as close as Bacon may be to Egypt. objects overlap each other. For Christianity subjected the form. There are ' av vs of the accident. all sorts of vases or fruits tumbled into a heap. it is because it implies the conquest of an optical space. 12! I2J . in principle. is its opposite: the event. It is because Fgypt put the form in the service of essence that Western painting could make this conversion (the problem was posed very differently in the Orient. Christianity contains a germ of tranquil atheism that will nurture painting. Nothing prevents the painter from realizing that. ascended to heaven. we could take Christianity as our first point of reference. should be able to slide along the armature. But even taking this mobility into account. and overhanging plates. Modern painting begins when man no longer experiences himself as an essence. a risk of the fall. For Greek art had already freed the cube from its pyramidal covering: it distinguished the planes. the form begins to express the accident. the contour ceases to be the common limit on a single plane and becomes the selflimitation of the form or the primacy of the foreground. and put into play light and shadow. but undoubtedly the entire history of Western painting. and no longer the essence. or even the changeable. the form or the Figure was no longer rigorously linked to essence. but to what. and the contour-limit. invented a perspective. hollows and reliefs. along with its contour. Insofar as Cod was incarnated. Claudel is correct to see one summit of this movement in Rembrandt and Dutch painting. how can we explain the fact that his sphinx is scrambled. uniting the background-plane to the foregroundplane. because of its now essential relation with the accident. which did not "begin" with essence). a little loaf of bread falling into slices as if of its own volition. but more simply a "napkin or a rug on the point of unrolling. or rather the Figure. for example. treated in a "maleriscli" manner? What is at stake here is no longer just Bacon. and so on. we can see that Bacon is thinking of a bas-relief type of sculpture. If we attempted to define this Western painting. Classical representation thus takes the accident as its t. a distant viewing thai is never frontal: the form and the ground arc no longer on the same plane. by accidents. the planes are distinguished from each other.
where the gaze receives them and gathers them together. But this space is never the free space that invests and traverses the spectator. if this object is the organism and organization. they arc increasingly freed up for space. having abandoned its haptic function and become optical. and is not affected by the plays of shadow and light. the space of classical Greek art is a tactile optical space. . Hence. subordinated itself to the tactile as a secondary power here again. what replaces haptic space is a tactile optical space. 7 In short. or arch. the organic contour remains unchanging. What painting discovers are properly aesthetic laws. of a tendency "to abandon itself to the pure optical vision"). laden with a receptive passivity. in the space between the planes which they themselves sustain. on the contrary. 8 or. 5 And doubtless it is at this [joint that we must specify the complex nature of this optical space. imperious will" in order to express itself in an independent way. it is because the form of representation first of all expresses the organic life of man as subject. the energy of light is given a rhythm in accordance with the order of the forms. it is not merely visual but refers to tactile values. If representation is related to an object. no matter how complex they may be. Increasingly freed from the background. In fact. even though it still subordinates them to vision. this "organization" entails an extraordinaryset of properly pictorial inventions). T h e forms refer to themselves. the eye. interruptions that destabilize organic representation it can only move in one of the following two directions: either toward the exposition of a purely optical space. 6 The contour has ceased to be geometric in order to become organic. In it. . and that figuration is only a result. which make classical representation a form of representation that is organic and organized. Art can indeed be figurative. The plane enclosed in a dome. as in automatic writing. but it is an absolutely necessary servant. For while it breaks with "haptic" vision and close viewing. But if an evolution is produced or rather. it is because representation is first of all organic in itself. plastic. These two opposed directions seem to '»' incarnated in Byzantine art and in Gothic or barbarian" art. This is because Byzantine art reverses Greek art by giving such a degree of activity to the background that we no longer know where the background ends and the forms begin. in which what is expressed is no longer essence but connection. although we have seen that it was not so at first. the hand is only a servant. which rebels against and suppresses the subordination. which is freed from its references to even a subordinate tactility (it is in this sense that Wollllin speaks. because it is a tangible contour. from themselves. and having become the background 127 . toward the imposition of a violent manual space. the organic activity of man. which must guarantee the individuation of the optical form through visual variations and diverse points of view. .Francis Bacon does not simply apply laws that come from elsewhere. that is. vault. in the evolution of art. where the hand seems to be guided by '•' "foreign. Somewhat like a stick whose straightness in the water I can verify. but the organic contour acts as a mold in 126 Every Painter Recapitulates the History of Painting which contact is made to work toward the perfection of the optical form. this relation is derived from the form of representation. Despite all the talk about Greek light.
Even abstract painting. perpetually twisting. either through the mass of the body in movement. On the contrary. from shadow to light. We are no longer directed inward the purely optical. and the background through an inner relationship that is specifically optical. but one that is in the process of disintegrating iClaudel suggested just this with regard to lighl . Worringer discovered the formula of this frenetic line: it 's a life.s in the light. The form i. It is an abstraction. The eye no longer appeals to the tat tile. a violence. The tactile referents are annulled. The accident thereby changes status." which goes to infinity either by continually changing direction." It is thus opposed to the organic life of 1 lassica] representation. much later. splitting. and even the contour ceases to be a limit. and how docs it differ from an organization? A composition is itself an organization. it is rather the apparition itself that creates essence and law: things rise up and ascend into the light. and a life that the eye can barely follow. Barbarian art tjocs beyond organic representation in two ways. and is now the result of shadow and light. but the most bizarre and intense kind of life. but even if the object's form i. but also to the geometric line of '•Uypiian essence. or through 'he speed and changing direction of the fiat line. nor does it have to be confirmed by a close viewing that picks out the tactile connections. but an expressionls| i« abstraction. will rely on disintegrating factors. the tactile once again assumes its pure activity. in its radical attempt to institute an optical space of transformation.s no longer even essence that appears. it is restored to the hand and given a speed. and rather than finding laws in the " n a t u r a l " organic. of black shores and white surfaces. and (he emperor of Byzantium was not wrong when he set about persecuting and dispersing his artists. and not only do indistinct zones become essential. or else by turning back on itself in a violent peripheral or whirling movement. It is iffi accordance with an analogous principle that painting. in the seventeenth century. will develop rhythms of light and shadow that will no longer respect the integrity of a plastic form. distant viewing no longer has to vary its distance according lo this or thai part." Every Painter Recapitulates the History of Painting a unique tonality. a nonorganic vitality. darkness. As opposed to classical representation. But what is a composition. owing to the distance it creates between itself and the spectator is the active support of impalpable forms that depend increasingly on the alternation of light and dark. but will instead make an optical form emerge out of the background. rediscovering a pure Byzantine inspiration beyond the seventeenth century: an optical code Barbarian or Gothic art (in Worringer's broad sense of the term) also dismantles organic representation. and the optical space of luminous 128 129 . but is established directly by the whole of the painting. on relations of value. of light and shadow. its clarity communicates directly with shadows. of clarity and obscurity. Beings disintegrate while ascending into the light." in the independence ol" light (and color): it is as if the classical organization gave way to a composition. a "grace" or "miracle. from the dark to the bright. It i. but in a completely different manner.Francis Bacon plane. Worringer has described this "northern line. and breaking off from itself.s no longer separable from a transformation or transfiguration that. establishes "a kind of love affair kindled by a decent life. on the purely optical play of light and shadows. it finds a spiritual assumption.
and the lin never ceases to encounter obstacles that force it to chang direction. or even into strokes dispersed inside the mass. because the powers of the line and the plane tend to be equalized: by constantly being broken. II there is a geometry here. as opposed to the idealism of transformation. it is an operative geometry of the trai or the accident. It is a manual space. tends to be decomposed into flat strokes that change direction. however. seems to belong to a purely °ptical world. like a ribbon." 1 " It is as if a purely manual space were taking its revenge. like light. a space of active. but because it is composed of strokes [traits] that confer on it an intense realism traits of the body or the head. insofar as it is common to different animals. traits of animality or humanity. the hand that manipulates has discovered how to free itself from them. to the human and the animal. It is a realism of deformation. it is a very different geometry from that o Egypt or Greece. as in chiaroscuro. One also finds in Michelangelo a power that stems directly from this manual space. It is as if the organisms were caught up in a whirling or serpentine movement Every Painter Recapitulates the History of Painting thai gives them a single "body" or unites them in a single "fact. At the very least. and to intensify itself through these changes. when light is liberated and becomes independent of forms. As for the contour. which works through manual aggregates rather than through luminous disaggregation. And things become even more complicated if one considers the Problem of color. manual strokes. garland. and the strokes do not constitute zones of indistinctness in the form. For example. or if the accidents of light are determined by the manual line. for if the eyes that judge still maintain their accuracy. it is never the outline of anything. it is not in the sense that it would rediscover forms." apart from any figurative or narrative connection.as if they were incompatible. Claudel can speak of a peinture a la truelle. while at the same time the plane becomes less than a surface. 12 One no longer knows if the accidents of the form are determined by I he optical light. namely. as if it were on a rug. for its part. the curved form. The accident is everywhere. It is enough to look at a Rembrandt painting upside down and close up to discover the manual line as the reverse of optical light. first of all. color. either because the line is swept along by the infinite movement. Neither form nor ground exists any longer. or even anthropomorphic. or ribbon. within which it executes its "little feats of strength. ribbon'). If this Gothic line is also animalistic. and as such they can enter into new and complex combinations and correlations. the line becomes more than a line.. the line does not delimit one. as the limit of the movement of the inner mass. t )ne could say that the optical space has itself liberated new tactile values (and also the reverse). and at tlSc same time seems to maintain its 130 131 . beard. in any sense. or else because it alone possesses an outline.Francis Bacon apparition. a "trowel painting" in which the manipulated body is placed in a vault or a cornice. to oppose these two tendencies toward a purely optical space and toward a purely manual space ." It would be wrong. and to pure abstraction (serpent. what they have in common is the dismantling of the tactile optical space of so-called classic representation. but zones of indiscernibility in the line. the manner in which the body exceeds the organism or makes it fall apart.
or Cezanne. was not satisfied with making black shores and white surfaces (or the saturated tone of blue enamel and the same transparent tone of marblci resonate together in a modulation of light. Thus. based on the contrast of black and white. For color itself is capable of two very different kinds of relation: relations of value. the second through a sequence of tones in the order of the spectrum. by the '''alive opposition of warm and cool. a pure modulation of color that tends to be selfsufficient. and green) play together in a modulation of color: it invented colorism as well as luminism. And Cezanne often made the two systems coexist. in which a tone is defined as either dark or light. in an optical space where colors are more or less indifferent. recreates a properly haptic function. red. Are there not two very different kinds of gray". Color. in which this or that pure tone is defined as warm or cool. they thereby serve one and the same optical space. light and shadow: but the former. and relations oj tonality. in which the planar character of the surface creates volumes only through the different colors that arc arranged on it. or that light attains color ("it is through the oppositions of warm and cool tones that the colors used by the painter without any absolute luminous quality in themselves come to represent light and shadow"). based on the spectrum. shaped by chiaroscuro. for example. and that their combinations constitute powerful acts of painting. modeling i" Every Painter Recapitulates the History of Painting chiaroscuro. or the modulation of light appeal to a purely optical function of distant vision. Now. This is what Wolfflin means when he says that."' But even when the two kinds of relation work together. Monet. the first through a local tone.. and the corresponding eccentric or concentric movement of expansion '" 'ontraction (whereas the bright and dark instead attest \ 133 132 . 1 7 Was this not already the great difference between Newton and Goethe from the point of view of a theory of colors? We will be able to speak of optical space only when the eye fulfills a function that is itself optical. when relations of tonality tend to eliminate relations of value. the modulation of color. blue. as in Turner. we cannot conclude that. in which the juxtaposition of pure tones arranged gradually on the flat surface forms a progression and a regression that culminates in a close vision. Byzantine mosaic. saturated or rarefied. or green and red. the optical gray of black white and the haptic gray of green-red? It is no longer a manual space that is opposed to the optical space of sight. The latter was defined by the opposition of '"'•ghl and dark. shadow and light. on the contrary." 13 But things are not so simple. we will speak of a haptic space and a haptic function of the eye. on the opposition of yellow and blue. being addressed to sight. it also made its four pure tones (gold. rather than simply to be related to it. nor is it a . within SI Rhl itself.i <tile space that is connected to the optical. it is through very different means that color is concpiered in light. On the contrary." It is obvious that these two scales of color continually mix with one another. If it is true that relations of value. depending on the prevailing or even exclusive relations of value. 15 Seventeenth-century painting pursued both the liberation of light and the emancipation of color in relation to the tangible form. like light begins to take control of the form.Francis Bacon independence in relation to the form. there is a haptic space that competes with "P"<'al space. it matters little "whether we speak of colors or only light or dark spaces.
humankind is •"» accident. haptic vision. which is where the fall occurs. which raises inner space to an abstraction. it still conserves a menacing relation with a possible narration (we represent what we think we can touch. A great painter never recapitulates the history of painting in his own work in an eclectic manner. but a temporal. The accident opens up a space between the Nv " planes. optical modeling in chiaroscuro still acts like a mold that has been internalized. This fact is the constitution or reconstitution of a haptic function of sight. it is no longer even an interior mold. By avoiding abstraction. "in we can already discern an important difference ' " ' p i n g into the Egyptian world like a first catastrophe die form collapses. though the periods may have an indirect relation to it. By contrast. but becomes accident. It is as if the 134 135 . T h e historical recapitulation consists of stopping points and passages. 1 '' So while the painting of light or value indeed broke with the figuration that resulted from a tactile optical space. it would be like the space covered by the unity of a single.. It does not even correspond to the separate aspects of a given painting. shores and flows .. Bacon first of all seems to be an Egyptian. colorism avoids both figuration and narration. strictly speaking. Chapter 15 Bacon's Path The haptic world and its avatars Colorism A new modulation From Van Gogh and Gauguin to Bacon The two aspects of color: bright tone and broken tone. The form ls no longer essence. to which alone the name of modulation belongs. lie on a single plane of a close. connected to each other by 'he Contour. And the way luminism escapes from this danger of storytelling is by taking refuge in a pure code of black and white. what seems to be happening in the light or what we presume is happening in the shadows). which are extracted from or reconstitute a open sequence. One might say that a new Egypt rises up. but only a continuous creation of space. an Egypt °* the accident. it is inseparable from a fall. and moves infinitely closer to the pure state of a pictorial "fact" which has nothing left to narrate. and continuous mold. composed uniquely of color and by color." 1 Still other oppositions follow from this: as different as it may be from an external tactile mold. in which the light penetrates the mass unequally. There is even an intimacy linked to the optical.Francis Bacon to an "aspiration" to movement). but we narrate what we sec. which is precisely what colorists cannot tolerate in chiaroscuro. A painting by Bacon has an Egyptian look '" U: the form and the ground. Rather.-'" There is neither an inside nor an outside. colorism is the analogical language of painting: if there is still molding by color. variable. the idea of a " h o m e " OH even a "homely atmosphere. the accident which has itself become durable. simple gesture. field and Figure. This is his first slopping point. Nor does this history correspond directly to the painter's periods." even if it could be extended to the whole world. the spatializing energy of color.
This is enough. and the form moved up a little into a foreground plane. producing a connection which is itself tactile. which more often tends to the bright than the dark. disaggregating. and owes its very clarity to this tangibility (figuration follows from this. and that forces the eye to confront this manual power as if it were a foreign power. The danger now is no longer simply that of figuration. but it is a stop closer to \M ! 17 . but that of narration (What is happening? What is going to happen? or What happened?). to make the beautiful unity of the haptic world seem doubly broken. and calls for a painting that will take the image "away from the interior and the home. They are what must be eliminated. This Ibrm of representation also aliens the ground insofar as. Yet one might think that the diagram is essentially optical. as in Turner. but for that reason they are all the more intrusive in painting. it is because of this ambiguous association. because it tends toward black and works with shadows or dark colors. 1 he optieal world. it is the "eye" of a hurricane. For even when darkened or tending toward black. wiped away. on the contrary. sometimes. which appears as chance. either because it tends toward white or. which overturns the optical coordinates as well as the tactile connections. it is the "malerisch" shadow. and in so doing. The diagram is indeed a stopping or ''''sting point in Bacons paintings. the form appears to be tangible. or its analogues. On the contrary.the mold." 1 If Bacon renounces the malerisch treatment. he cuts through them. as in the malerisch period. and which designates a rest or "topping point that is always linked to an immense agitation of matter. If there is still an eye.Francis Bacon ground receded a little into a background plane. But in the other direction. severing it from all its tactile connections. accident. or the involuntary. This qualitative difference. with all the more reason. but an unbridled manual power. however. the cube becomes the organic contour of the form . automatism. the darkening of color. for what separates the background from the foreground is not perspective. it curls around the form. in the background plane. Figuration and narration are only effects. The manual diagram produces an irruption like a scrambled or cleaned zone. but a "shallow" depth. the ring). It is a frenetic zone in which the hand is no longer guided by the eye and is forced upon sight like another will. but an absolute zone of indisccrnibility or objective indetermination that is opposed to the optical. The diagram is never an optical effect. the ground of the background plane attracts the form. subverting and scrambling them. It is a catastrophe. which overcomes the form and dissolves*! it. the diagram forms not a relative zone of indistinction that is still optical. and a "inch more profound catastrophe than the preceding one. is swept "ui. In the foreground plane. But neither the tactileoptical world nor the purely optical world are stopping Bacon's Path points for Bacon. however. is not quantitatively large. as a consequence). The contour ceases to be the common limit of the form and the ground on a single plane (the round area. It becomes the cube. This marks the birth of the tactile-optical world. And here it is a pure optical world that tends to free itself. But Bacon continually denounces the annoying "intimacy" or "homely atmosphere" of chiaroscuro. at the very moment when the form loses its tactile character. Sometimes it is light that gives the form a clarity which is purely optical and aerial. and the tactile optical world.
but in depth. the diagram covers everything in appearance only. We have seen that the diagram must remain localized.. or. It occupies or fills the shallow depth. through these pure relations of color. the haptic sense of color will have been made possible by the diagram and its manual intrusion. but at the same time. but also shadow and light. if the relations of color are developed for I heir own sake. but of a tendency that runs through painting and leaves behind characteristic masterpieces. To say that the diagram. the differential relation. When the curtain striates the entire surface. Clarity no longer resides in the tangible form or the optical light.Francis Bacon green and red than black and white. then you have everything. expansion and contraction. on the contrary one that surrounds the most agitated kind of life. light and shadow. but it does pass through the diagram and emerge from it. but that color itself is discovered to be the variable relation. but i" the incomparable Hash produced by complementary colors. Even in the malerisch period. It acts as a relay. but this is because they treat light and dark. light and dark. the juxtaposition of unblended touches: the Aspiration of each color to totality by appealing to its """iplementary color. distinct from those that characterize other tendencies. the diagram dismantles the optical world. in the interval between the planes. In every part of the painting. of expansions and contractions. and that something must emerge from the diagram. in turn. The diagram always has effects that go beyond it. The practical rules of colorism are the following: the abandonment of local tone. it must be reinjected into the visual whole. It is color.3 Colorism claims to bring out a peculiar kind of sense from sight: a haptic sight of color-space. it was Goethe who laid down •lie fust principles of such a haptic vision. where it introduces a properly haptic world and gives the eye a haptic function. as opposed 1(1 the optical sight of light-time."Colorism" means not only that relations arc established between colors (as in every painting worthy of this name). but if we look closely. black and white. then you have everything: form and ground. Bacon's Path Light is time. The diagram acts as a modulator. bright and dark. we can see that in fact it falls between the two planes. and as the common locus of warm and cool colors. It does in fact remain localized. is a stopping point in the painting is not to say that it completes or constitutes the painting. rather than covering the entire painting (as in expressionism). it seems to be in front of the Figure. Colorists can indeed make use of black and white. and in this sense remains localized. and who "render" not only die form. Painters we call "colorists" are those who tend to substitute relations of lonalitv for relations of value. on the contrary. the contrasting of colors with their 138 139 . Certainly it is not a question of a better solution. and establish tonal relations between them. that form this haptic world and haptic sense. no longer in surface. on which everything else depends. The formula of the colorists is: if you push color to its pure internal relations (hot cold. as colors. Certainly the color that shapes the Figure and fills the fields does not depend on the diagram. but space is color. that is. If the color is perfect. and time. a surrounded by an immense agitation. indeed. in accordance with relations of warm and cool. As an unbridled manual power. Against the Newtonian Conception of optical color. and the relations between colors. expansion contraction).
the bright lone of the fields seizes upon color as a passage or tendency. distinct from Gezanncan modulation. "vividness" [vif].7 In fact. modulation is lost. which it was forced to abandon when the planes of ancient Egypt separated and diverged. one of which is broken and the other pure. But in addition to the danger of reconstituting a code. or even a Byzantine or primitive art. One of Van ''"'-ill's paintings of the postman Roulin | l l l ] exhibits a Wile that shades into white. One attempts to avoid any possible codification. takes on a completely new meaning and function. but "touch" [louche]. do not succeed in communicating. pei|x-ndicular to the chromatic progression. which is strictly inseparable from colorism. roses. On the other hand. Colorism.i Japanese art. and abstract surface. color loses all its modulation hence Cezanne's severe judgments against Gauguin. with its own means. the field and the Figure. By mixing complementary colors in ''itital proportion. the way in which blue or yellow tend toward red: and even if there is perfeel homogeneity. the body's volume will be rendered by one or more broken tones. 8 The bright field and the encircled Figure. merely claims to give this haptic sense back to sight. which form another type of passage in which the color seems to have been tired and baked in a kiln. disconcerting. has profoundly demonstrated this complementarity of a "unitive vision" and a singularized perception as they appear in Gauguin and Van Gogh. modulation had to take into account two demands: the demand for a homogeneous ground and an aerial armature. indifferent. "achieving clarity" [tirer au clair] attest to this haptic sense of the eye (as Van Gogfa says. the production of clarity through color ' Painting not only creates its masterpieces by combining its own tendencies (lineartactile. luminist. we believe that modulation. but also by differentiating and opposing them.Francis Bacon intermediaries or transitions. creating fields that would make up the armature. and the demand for a singular or specific form. colorist). with very fine differences of saturation rather than of value (for example. "seizing hold of life" [saisir sur le vif]. 5 This is why colorism found itself faced with this double problem. while at the same time inventing singular. forms which truly have the volume of a body. greens. no matter how uniform it may be. the prohibition of mixtures except to obtain a "broken" tone: the juxtaposition of two complementary or similar colors. as if the singularity of the body were let loose on a Hat. But this is true only when the ground and the form. but vision has at least two senses. Everything is visual in painting. the production of light and even time through the unlimited activity of color. uniform. a vision such that "everyone who has eyes could see clearly"). as Van Gogh said when he boasted of being an "arbitrary colorist. One might say that by splitting into these two directions. how to erect large sections of homogeneous color. 140 I II . "partitioned off. Georges DuthuM Bacon's Path despite his reservations. Gauguin's La Belle AtlgiU [104]. The vocabulary of colorism . violets." reviving . which the size of the color pate lies seemed to put in question. and unknown forms in variation.not only hot and cold." 8 On the one hand. Modulation by pure and distinct tints following the order of the spectrum this was the properly Cczanncan invention for attaining the haptic sense of color. while the flesh of the face is '•"rated by broken tones. there is still a virtual or "identical passage" . the broken tone subjects color to a heating or a firing which rivals ceramics. "yellows.
in turn. as we have seen. the armature or the field. in principle. The colors are not blended. It entails a change in the Cezannean hierarchy: whereas modulation in Cezanne belonged particularly to landscapes and still lifes. a revelation of Martinique or Tahiti. and the flows of broken colors. as opposed to past portraits. as the eternity of the passage in itself. is worthy of a?. thereby introducing the harmonious relation between the two which. such was not the case. namely. but have two modes of clarity: thffl shores of vivid color. T h e first danger. in this new viewpoint the primacy now moves to the portrait the painter once again becomes a portraitist. Bacon is one of the greatest colorists since Van Gogh and Gauguin./•i anas Bacon reds. This is why Bacon will leave this period behind and. can be seen in Bacon's malerisch period: the broken tones only seem to form a mixture or a blending that ends up darkening the entire painting. the passage of the broken tones. and the bright or pure tones. Bacon's Path Shores and flows: the latter produces the body or the Figure. But in fact.! The problem of modulation thus concerns the passage of bright color in the flat field. What is misunderstood is not the Cezannean modulation. In Bacon. 1 " This is because the flesh calls for broken tones. at least in terms of the optical effect it reintroduced. undoubtedly has its own dangers and its possible catastrophe. Time itself seems to result from color in two ways: as time that passes. Cezanne is reproached for lacking an armature as much as the flesh.| manifesto. the broken tones produce the body of the Figure. the foreground plane of the Figure and the background plane of the field. the armature of the fields. "Flesh-colored whitewash"" and "highly" polished steel. Mi- 1« . but in so doing it occupies the shallow depth that separates the two planes." The whole problem of modulation lies in the relation between the two. preserves their clarity throughout. losing their clarity and lapsing into a monotonous gray. with an abstract and coagulated brightness. introducing all the possible relations between the tw <> planes in the haptic space that is thereby constituted. 12 This ambiguity. but the fact remains that the malerisch period flirts with ''"' clanger. without which there would be no painting. in the interviews. His insistent appeal to "flesh" as M property of color. but rather this other modulation that colorism discovers. the former."" (As for the possibility of treating the body with a single broken tone this would perhaps be one of Gauguin's inventions. and the uonindiflcrcnt relation between these two passages or movements of color." says Bacon. that the broken tones of the Figure would be allowed to blend together and become scrambled. The dark <iu lain falls. But there is yet another danger. and the portrait is able to make the broken tones and the bright tones resonate. in ihe chromatic variation of the broken tones that compose the flesh: and as the eternity of time that is. The "modern portrait" would be done in color and broken tones. as the voluminous body of the head and the uniform background of the flat field. between the fleshly matter and the large uniform panels. is that the ground would remain indifferent and inert. This treatment of color. in the monochromy of the field. from which Gauguin suffered so much. will leave the validity of the shallow depth '"tact. in a manner again reminiscent of Gauguin was it not Gauguin who invented this new type of depth? . which were done in light and blended tones.
Thus there arc indeed three distinct elements. Consider an example analyzed by Marc Le Bot. as much a surface or volume as it is a line: this is the round area. and blues. but is raised to the status of an autonomous element. This is why a directional arrow can be inscribed on it. Doubtless there are some traits. in such a way that it is enhanced and accelerated. a < riinson that is combined with the black of the disk and ( ""trusted with the white of the crumpled newspaper. that already delineate a contour that belongs to the armature or the Figure. the ring. in this painting. rectilinear or curvilinear. which provides the armature. monochrome ochcr shore as the background. the relations between colors which at the same time explains the unity of the whole. itself a bluish broken 144 i i:> . If their space is comparable to a homogeneous and fluid mass in its monochromatism. There is the large. their regime of signs cannot be derived from a geometry of stable measure. the bed. Finally. the armchair. there is the black blind that seems to cut across the '"'Id of ochcr: then the washbasin. in color. reds. which no longer belongs to either the armature or the Figure. And it is modulation that is. which delineate (he common limit of the Figure and the armature on what is supposed to he a single plane (or almost i viewed at close range. It is derived. ''""st. the puddle or the pedestal. The 1976 Figure at a Washbasin [80] is like a piece of wreckage washed downstream by a river of ochcr color with circular eddies and a red reef. like A flow of broken tones '"hers. Now all three of these converge on color. the Figure. simply serve to establish the different modalities of color: for on the other hand. there is the Figure. and the contour.structure. from a dynamic that makes the gaze glide from the bright ochcr to the red. But these lines. which prevent the unlimited expansion of color through a double spatial effect that confines the color locally and fixes it. the distribution of each element. but disrupted by breakwaters. on the one hand. there is a third contour. and broken tones Heads and shadows Color-contour Painting and taste: good and bad taste We have seen that the three fundamental elements of Bacon's painting were the armature or . Hows.1 1 his distribution can be clearly seen. the mattress. and the way each of them acts upon the others. thereby seeming to reintroduce a kind of tactile mold (Gauguin and Van Gogh were criticized for this). Broad flows of color in this way cross the space of Francis Bacon's pictures.Note on Color Chapter 16 Note on Color Color and the three elements of painting Colorstructure: the fields and their divisions The role of black Color-force: figures. But there are still other elements. There is the contour as an autonomous power (the reef) it is the crimson of the mattress or cushion on which the Figure is standing.
violets. The washbasin is like a second autonomous contour which surrounds the Figure's head. subordinating it to the contour. and the long curved pipe. where a blue ribbon crosses the green field horizontally. greens. It is a rich communication of colors. The Figure's broken tones incorporate not only the pure tone of the field but also the pure tone of the red cushion. and in Two Figures Lying on a Bed with Attendants (53). Sometimes the field itself has clear-cut sections of another intensity or even another color. Hence a first question: What is the mode of the shore or the field.Francis Bacon tone. we see the large orange contour pushing back the red field. which displays a Vertical green ribbon. but ii often appears in the simple paintings.first surrounded its foot.oranges. reds. golden yellows. in the. the Figure. the field rather frequently includes a band or ribbon of another color. and which also cuts across the field. the violet field is contained by the large red contour. in the Figure at a Washbasin [80|. more concise contours.with the tone of the washbasin. in such a way that it occupies the shallow depth that separates them and relates the entire painting to one and the same plane. a broken blue that contrasts with the pure red. and the washbasin. where the orange field is •" ' cntuated by a violet ribbon (which is replaced by a white bar in the second bullfight [5711. In a way. by a large curvilinear contour that takes up at least the bottom half of the painting. it quickly becomes a p p a r e n t that modulation must simply consist of internal variations of intensity or saturation. finally. which surrounds the mattress. II of 1960 [27] (violet sections in the green field). the field is limited and contained. and this is also the case. These relations of proximity are Mote on Color determined in several ways. I l(. pinks. what is the modality of color in the field. and that these variations themselves change depending on relations of proximity to this or that zone of the field.beginning. Sometimes again. a white marked with manual daubs of oehcr. in keeping with a technique dear to Bacon. and how does the field provide the armature or structure? If wc consider the particularly significant example of the triptychs. modulation could still be obtained through differences of value i as in the 1944 Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion | 1 | ) . pushed back on itself. by means of a technique frequently employed in the triptychs. Such is the case in the right panel of the 1962 triptych Three Studies for a Crucifixion |29]). as in the 194b Painting [3] or the Pope No. adding to it bluish tones that resonate. we see the large. as in the three faces of the beautiful rose-colored Triptych of 1970 [62). brilliant fields of monochrome colors spread out before us . And the pipe is itself a third autonomous contour. 147 . just as the. ochers. partially. but also in the first bullfight [Study for Bullfight No. forming a horizontal plane that joins tin vertical field in the shallow depth. whose upper half dividers the field of color in half. /. it is true.field is crossed by a white bar. This technique. the field is interrupted only by a thin white. We can see the function of these secondary yet indispensable elements. 1969 (56]). where the. Sometimes. is rare in the triptychs. Sometimes. it falls between the field and the Figure. and the two outer panels of a 1974 triptych [75]. in the 1962 Three Studies for a Crucifixion [29]. Thus. this large contour still belongs to the field. Now if. As for the blind.bar that crosses it completely. its role is all the more important insofar as. precisely because it is itself only the outer limit of other.
the 1965 Crucifixion [35]. it makes the field of color project itself forward. It assumes the role that hud been given to the curtain or blended colors in the malerisch period. which incorporates a type of contour (the largest I or an aspect of the contour. 1972 [68]). Or finally. But it can just as easily consist of a system of linear apparatuses that suspend the Figure in the field. it is opposed to the flatness of the '•fid." but vivid. colored field introduces subtle internal variations that depend on relations of proximity (the same band-field structure can also be found in the work of abstract expressionists like Burnett Newman). retreating from the field.same. but covers the entire painting. nor even interrupted. and sometimes total or constituting the entire field (Three Studies from the Human Body. sometimes encompassing a mid-sized contour (for example. Here ihen is the means by which the uniform field that is. they are opposed to the mono( 'lu'oine shores in three ways: the broken lone is opposed '" 'In. but filling it completely. as in the 1970 Triptych [60|. which implies an active . Even in the other cases. But even here. no longer either affirming or denying the shallow depth.Francis Bacon The purest pictorial situation doubtless appears when the field is neither sectioned oil. where the proximity is assured by the line of a large. In a single instance.Note on Color presence of the shallow depth. which shows that Bacon did not reach this new formula for black all at once. pure or ' ""lpleic. "Chronochromie. ii is polychromatic (except in the remarkable case of a 1974 triptych [74]. color provides a structure or armature: it is made up intrinsically of one or more zones of proximity. This is particularly evident in the portrait of George Dyer. on the contrary. in the form ol broken "ones. where the flesh is treated 148 149 . the black section is. Under these conditions. finally. Now this black section docs not produce die same effect as the other possible sections. for they manifest directly the way a homogeneous. 1973 [73]). the broken tones constitute the flesh of the Figures. sometimes quite localized (Pope . we now find ourselves before Hows of color. 1960 [27]. H we move on to the other term. this is a general rule: the smaller or more localized the contour is. 1962 [29]. the Figure. The armature can then consist ol the connection between the field and the horizontal plane as defined by a large contour. This produces a kind of temporal or successive perception of the field itself. 1967 [44]). the field becomes the object of a temporal perception that is raised to eternity as the form of time. denying all depth (the 1970 Triptych Ilid| . As such. 1972 [70]. Or rather.lone that is perhaps the ". 1967 [45]. Portrait (if a Man Walking down Steps. Three Studies for a Crucifixion." 2 But the cases in which the ribbon crosses the field arc no less interesting and important. nor limited. Portrait of George Dyer Staring into a Mirror. it can consist in the action of a very particular section of the field that we have not yet considered: the field occasionally includes a black section. thei orange field that encompasses a green bed in the 1970 Studies of the Human Body [6211.\o. the more aerial the triptych will be. and attains a maximum of light like the eternity of a monochrome time. Triptych. or small contour. mid-sized. sometimes even flowing (Triptych. the painting becomes truly aerial. II. sometimes even surrounding a small contour on all sides (the center panel of the 1970 triptych [61]). where the blue circle and the ocher apparatuses seem to be suspended in a sky. thickened.
as in the case where the diagram appears in the body or the head. When the How of colors is polychromatic. color seems to recover its old tactile optical function and to be subordinated to the closed line. Many large ""Hours. 49. the shadow itself. 48. Finally. in order to assume a series of dynamic figural values. by contrast. with its reds and blues on a green field. In the second place. it is in the portraits of heads [34. as we have seen. In the first place. We are familiar with its ability to multiply itself. of shadow and light. a rug) surrounding a midsized contour (a chair). receive a different treatment: the crumpled clothes may conserve the values of bright and dark. blues and reds often dominate. Precisely because this contour is not here the contour of the Figure Inn is executed as an autonomous element of the picture. it is the affinity of the body or the flesh with meat that explains the treatment of the Figure through broken tones. Each dominant color and each broken tone indicates the immediate exercise of . Yet they appear not only in meat. and not the reverse. 1967 150 151 . In each case. Or the three contours of the Figure at a Washbasin | 8 0 | . In fact. we can see thai color attains a completely different regime than it had previously. 'his element is determined by color in such a way that the hue is derived from it. as in cases where the diagram is situated elsewhere or has spread elsewhere (for example. Most notably. the internal variation of the field was defined in terms of a zone of proximity. Three Studies for a Portrait of Lucian Freud. '963 [32].Francis Bacon as a single broken green lone that resonates with the pure green of a ribbon). such as clothes and shadows. which are precisely the dominant tones of meat. Lastly. the figure's shadow. 54] that the flow loses the all-too-easily tragic and figurative aspect it still possessed in the meat of the crucifixions. And above all. as the point of application or agitated locus of all forces. are treated as rugs i Man and Child. the 1967 Portrait of Isabel Rawsthorne Standing in a Street in Soho [47]). but even more so in the bodies and heads of the portraits for instance. there remains the contour. Thus. 1966 l ' 8 | : Portrait of Ceorge Dyer Staring into a Mirror. In all these cases. bright tone (hence the beautiful blue shadow in the 1970 Triptych [60]. which itself surrounds a small contour (a round area). whereas the monochromatic shores or fields were raised to a kind of eternity as the form of time. the proximity of a ribbon). This proximity can certainly be spatial. which is obtained. that the flow of colors enters into relations of proximity. the How traces millimetrical variations in the body as the content of time. It is thus color ' h u still creates the line and the contour. Many of the portraits of heads also combine the dominant blue reds with other dominant colors. Yet color is subordinated to the line in appearance only. just as the rich flow of broken tones gives shape to the Figure's body.i force on the corresponding zone of the bod) or head: i' Mote on Color immediately renders a force visible. but it can also be topological and act at a distance. for example. notably ochers. and more importantly! color-structure gives way to color-force. the Figure's other elements. will be treated with a pure. But it is with the diagram. the large contours have a curvilinear or angular line that indicates the manner in which a horizontal plane is freed from the vertical plane in the minimal depth. in the large 1970 back of a man [63] or the 1959 portrait of Miss Muriel Belcher [26]. in various wavs for example. since it can include a large contour (for example.
This sense. There. Russell goes so far as to say that the carpet itself is of a particularly hideous kind.is indeed a creative taste in color. In the same way. in a profane use.of sight. of expansion and contraction. Most notably. more like white water lilies than an ugly rug." as Michael Fried has clone with regard to certain colorists: Can taste be a potentially creative force and not simply an arbiter of fashion?4 Does Bacon owe this taste to his past as a decorator? Bacon's good taste would seem to have been exercised most intenseh in the armature and the regime of the fields. or this vision. Buf just as the Figures sometimes have. which constitute a 1'iopcrly visual sense of touch.appearance itself refers only to figuration. Having once or twice espied Bacon walking by himself in just such a street as the Tottenham Court Road.sense. and makes one regime of color pass into another.Vote on Color sometimes appear to be in '"bad taste. with its red veins and blue zones. which gives way to an uncertain rose-colored pool in the left and right panels.. when the. I know with what a concentrated and baleful stare he examines shop-windows of this sort. decomposes die vertical field of violet horizontally. and contour) communicate and converge in color. (There are no carpets in his own apartment.large contour is presented as a rug. In' these contours. T h e rug in Man and Child [32]. Commenting on Alan and Child (32]. It is a color-contour. 1 Colorism (modulation) does consist not only of relations of warm and cool." as if Bacon's irony were exercised as a preference against decoration. concerns all the more the totality insofar as the three elements of painting (armature. the.forms and colors that make them look like monsters. perfect lilac oval in J^^ecntral panel of the 1972 Triptych [70]. or the golden-orange oval that radiates from the door in the 1978 Painting [81]. the halo still retains its function as a concentrated reflector of the Figure. the "lost hideous rug ceases to be hideous when one comprehends it "figurally." depending on the function that it exercises in relation to color. so the contours themselves . in accordance with the everyday task that occupies them and the momentary forces that are confronting them. One might ask whether this implies a kind of superior "good taste. it always seems to have a particularly ugly pattern.)" 5 Nonetheless. It also consists of regimes of colors. the relations between these regimes. and the harmonies between pure tones and broken tones. within which the Figure is erected and which can deploy delightful colors for example. Figure. a colored pressure that ensures the Figure's balance. "> the dilfercnt regimes of color. which vary in accordance with the colors considered. the. and makes us pass from the pure tone of the latter to the broken tones of the ''Sure.t Francis Bacon [4511. we recover a function that is derived from the halos of premodern painting. 152 153 . and seem to constitute a decorative regime of colon This third regime can be seen even better in the existence of the small contour. What is called haptic vision is precisely this! sense of colors. but they cease to be so as soon as they arc considered "figurally. The Figures seem to be monsters only from the viewpoint of a lingering figuration." because they then reveal the most natural of poses. Now placed at the foot of the Figure. or a haptic.
the manual proper. but only insofar as they touch with their eyes. manual. or in the head of the painter . in ancient forms whose secret we have lost (Egyptian art). preexistent or prefabricated). do not overlap exactly. and haptic The practice of the diagram On "completely different" relations Michelangelo: the pictorial fact The two definitions of painting. passing through dynamic tensions. the tactile. but when sight discovers in itself a specific function of touch that is uniquely its own. distinct from its optical function. contour. 1 The paintbrush and the easel can express a general subordination of the hand. and tends to grasp its forms through an optical code. . and ''Mutation will be there. and with figuration.The Eye and the Hand Chapter 17 The Eye and the Hand Digital. we will speak of the haptic whenever there is no longer a strict subordination in either direction. in turn. the more sight develops an "ideal" optical space. logical reversals. by line and eolor. through violence and manual insubordination. and by the trait and the color-pateh. and organic exchanges and substitutions (Focillon's famous text "In Praise of Hands" docs not seem to me to give an account of this). and the values through which this relation passes. and the haptic. To describe the relationship of the eye and the hand. it intervenes only in order to choose the units that correspond to pure visual forms. and which dismantles the optical. But it can also be recreated in the " m o d e r n " eye. The digital seems to mark the maximum subordination of the hand to the eye: vision is internalized. . There are several aspects in the values of the hand that must be distinguished from each other: the digital. According to Bacon. We will call this reversed relationship the manual. We will call these virtual referents (such as depth. Finally. at least in its early stages. 2 One might say that painters paint with their eyes. either a relaxed subordination or a virtual connection. for the first is visual. can give way to a veritable insubordination of the hand: the painting remains a visual reality. still presents manual referents with which it is connected. but what is imposed on sight is a space without form and a movement without rest. that is. This relaxed subordination of the hand to the eye.'* 154 155 I . 'his kind of space will inevitably be there. The more the hand is subordinated in this way. Not that these two characteristics are the same thing: figuration or the figurative appearance are rather like the consequence of this space. But this optical space. it is obviously not enough to say that the eye judges and the hands execute. and the hand is reduced to the finger. and so on) tactile referents. which the eye can barely follow. but the second is manual. And no doubt this haptic function was able to reach its fullness. directly and immediately. in one way or another: one has no choice in the matter (it will at least he there virtually. Let us begin with tactile o p t i c a l space. The relationship between the hand and the eye n infinitely richer. tactile. but no painter has ever been satisfied with the paintbrush. relief.
which create a complete Figure as the aesthetic analogue of the bird (relations between the arms of the meat. the mouth of the man as a jagged beak. and it communicates with the whole through the black shore. not at the level of the umbrella. but completely different relations." 1 If we start with the bird as an intentional figurative form. In effect. and gives way to the whole of the really executed painting or. below and to the left. but the series or the ligural whole. where we move across only a single form.' In the 1946 Painting [3]." which is made up exclusively of insubordinate color-patches and traits. mouth) can no longer be discerned. and a form of a completely different nature emerges from the diagram. but in the scrambled zone. which constitutes the specifically aesthetic analogy: the arms of the meat which are raised as analogues to wings. these two extreme examples allow us to bring out the complementary dimensions of the operation. Precisely because the diagram is not a coded formula. Bacon first cites two examples. it imposes the Figure. Roughly speaking. the sections of the umbrella. the law of the diagram. what is truly analogous to it. And something must. beyond the figuration contained in this whole. one prefers. the sections of the umbrella which are falling or closing. the painter looks for organic resemblance. We might assume that the diagram makes us pass from one form to another for example.Francis Bacon Now what will disrupt this space and its consequences. is the manual "diagram. Bacon even states explicitly that do not pass from one form to another. the mouth of the man . It is from the diagram at the center of the painting. one of which was "" longer." but the lines he had drawn suddenly took on ii kind of independence and suggested "something totally different. as if from a pool. which is called the Figure. And with regard to Painting [3]. he had wanted "to make a bird alighting on a field. and present itself to view. the diagram can be found. according to Bacon. is not the umbrella-form (which merely defines a figurative analogy or an analogy of resemblance i.man below. is this: one starts with a figurative form. the bird. at the point of close viewing that the entire series emerges as a series of accidents •mounting on top of another. a diagram intervenes and scrambles it. and the other. It is from these nonfigurative traits that the final whole emerges. The diagram-accident has scrambled the intentional figurative' form. not yet: ii destroys the figuration of the first and neutralizes that of the second. from a bird-form to an umbrella-form and thus that it acts as an agent oil transformation. the bi exists primarily in the intention of the painter.bird is not another form. And in the portraits of heads. it imposes nonformal color-patches and traits that function only as trails of birdness. •»"d between the two. m The Eye and the Hand above. Thus the diagram "led by imposing a zone of objective indiscernibility or indeterminability between two forms. through its 156 157 . to the umbrella series ." the man under the umbrella. Moreover. nose. of animality. What is substituted lor the. emerge from this diagram. and it is '"' \ that raise it to the power of the pure Figure. we see that what corresponds to this form in the painting. Hut this is not the case in the portraits. but sometimes "the paint moving from one contour into another" happens to liberate a more profound resemblance in which the organs (eyes. in a catastrophe.
8 But Bacon's d e m a n d always remains valid: the diagram must remain localized in space and time. Their is indeed a change of form. a creation of original relations which are substituted for the form: the meat that (lows. a trait-formula as much as a patch-formula. or which are made use of as. yet seeming to have the distances of the Sahara"). which have a necessary relation with the deformed parts. and the two come together in the same action of painting. like a gray that spreads itself everywhere. the mouth that is made jagged. by hatching them. there is 158 159 . The essential point about the diagram is that it is made in order for something to emerge from it. "Ul il we consider the painting as a process. the umbrella that seizes. the Figure. as in Painting \'3]. As the song says. the heterogeneity of the manual diagram and die visual whole indeed indicates a difference in nature or a leaped as if we leapt a first time from the optical eye to me hand. where the whole is given all at once. out of which the nonfigurative resemblance will emerge: "you The Eye and the Hand suddenly see through the graph [diagramme] that the mouth could go right across the face." 6 The diagram has introduced or distributed formless forces throughout the painting. if we consider the painting in lls reality. he can propose a linear formula as much as a colorist one.Francis Bacon original relations. And what emerges from the diagram. emerges both gradually and all at "iiic." There is a diagrammatical line of desert-distance. a uniquely figural Image. it must not cover the entire painting. by introducing new distances and new relations between them. and if nothing emerges from it. precisely. or a line of the "marshland" rather than the desert). but the change of form is a deformation. while the series is at the same time constructed "'•(dually. that is. And these new relations of broken tones produce a more profound resemblance. being manual. the diagram must not create a catastrophe. it must not mix colors. painting the world in Sahara gray '"you would love to be able in a portrait to make a Sahara of the appearance to make it so like." Being itself a catastrophe. " I ' m changing my shape. that is. it fails. for a head. "places. in which it deploys consequences that go beyond it. And when Bacon tries to think of a very general formula capable of expressing the diagram and its action of scrambling and rubbing. or rather the coloring gray. but break tones. Being itself a zone of scrambling. Thus." We thus see how everything can be done inside the same form second easel. that is. 7 Hence Bacon's program: to produce resemblance with nonresembling means. a distance-formula as much as a color-formula. This is because. it is the colored gray. just as there is a diagrammatical patch of gray-color. it must be reinjected into the visual whole. Being a mixture. I feel like an accident. But this gray is not the undifferentiated gray of white and black. which would be "sloppy" (we would once again fall into an undifferentiated gray. In short. one starts with the intentional or sketched out figurative form. One scrambles it from one contour to the other. The figurative lines will be scrambled by extending them. out of which new relations will emerge (broken tones) that are completely different from relations of resemblance. and a second time from the hand to the eye. it must not scramble the painting. a n o n c u r a t i v e resemblance for the same form.
a haptic eye. with mannerism. a clarity greater than that of the contour and even of light. from the manual diagram to haptic vision. And here again. seizure. that the Figure or the pictorial fact was born in its pure state. caught up in a kind of serpentine. capture evoke this direct manual activity that traces the possibility of fact: we will capture the fact." a "coagulation. indissolubly." an "evolution. is the formation of a third eye. sometimes with external forces that traverse them. a large back of a man: it is Michelangelo who inspires this in Bacon. pain. as if we caught them "between" two stories. striated with flashes. like a metal plate. A piece of meat. just as we will "seize hold of life. but even more profoundly. and which would no longer need any other justification than "an acrid and strident polychromy. sometimes with the variable forces of a flowing time. these are actually the most natural of postures." as if one were moving gradually from the hand to the haptic eye. which makes organisms and their elements crack or swell. this pictorial fact that has come from the hand. the body seems to enter into particularly mannered postures. we witness the revelation of the body beneath the organism. which no longer tells a story and no longer represents anything but its own movement. which we will call the pictorial fact. the problem of a pure logic: how to pass from the possibility of fact to the fact itself. Hit) 161 . like so many necessary accidents continually mounting on top of one another. or when we were alone. 12 Hence The Holy Family [ 107 J: the forms may be figurative. The words Leiris uses to describe Bacon hand. whereas the painting exists by making present a very particular fact. listening to a force that had seized us. 13 Certainly there is still an organic representation. For it is here that painting discovers. But this is true only if a story or a figuration is reintroduced: ligurally speaking.10 But this passage." But the fact itself. What we will call a "fact" is first of all the fact that several forms may actually be included in one and the same Figure. It was with Michelangelo.'"1 For the diagram was only a possibility of fact. sometimes with the eternal force of an unchanging time. this new clarity. and puts them into relation with forces sometimes with an inner ferce that arouses The Eye and the Hand them. a haptic vision of the eye. imposes a spasm on them. In the history of art. touch. It is as if the duality of the tactile •tin! the optical were surpassed visually in this haptic •unction born of the diagram. it was perhaps Michelangelo who made us grasp the existence of such a fact most forcefully." Everything is now brought into the clear. is the great moment in the act of painting. or anguish. or is weighed down by stress. whether abrupt or gradual. and which makes these apparently arbitrary elements coagulate in a single continuous flow. a "slow leak. deep in itself and in its own manner.Francis Bacon instead a continual injection of the manual diagram into the visual whole. and there may still be narrative relations between the characters but all these connections disappear in favor of a "matter of fact" or a properly pictorial (or sculptural) ligature.
Oil on canvas. 1950. Iowa. Great Britain. 1949. 1949. Oil on canvas. 66. 6. I'rivatc collection. Oil on canvas.Index of Paintings |(i| Head IV. Museum of Modern Art. 1953. 5 1 . Oil and pastel on canvas. 1946. Oil j and pastel on hardboard. Buffalo (gift ofSe ymour H. each panel 61 x 5 1 cm. Great Britain. 5 cm.5 cm. Belfast. 77. Oil on canvas. 1 5 2 . Oil on canvas. Private collection. 28. London. Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion. 1 5 2 x 1 1 6 . T h e numbers following each entry refer to the page numbers where Deleuze discusses or mentions the painting. Private collection. Three Studies of the Human Head. each panel 94 x 74 cm. 5 [ 15] Man with Dog. Hamburg. New York. 152 x 117 cm. Tin' Phillips Gollcction. 1 2 3 x 1 0 5 . 1 9 8 x 1 3 7 cm. Dcs Moines Art Center. 28. 1953. 17. 4 162 K»:l .5 cm. Oil on canvas. Milan. 153 x 118 cm. Museum of Modern Art. 1952. 8 0 . Brcra Museum. Washington. Eindhoven. 1945. 5 cm. 16 1950 Index of Paintings Numbers in brackets in the text refer to the corresponding painting in the chronological list below. Switzerland. Stedelijk Van Abbemuseuni. 145 x 128 en The Tate Gallery. Milan. 5 x 6 5 cm. 1953. 9 3 x 7 7 cm. 1945 6. [7| Fragment of a Crucifixion. Oil on canvas. each panel 198 x 132 | cm. 29. 4 1954 11'I Two Figures in the Grass. Detroit Institute of Arts. 4 1946 |3] Painting. Knox). Oil and tempura on canvas. 1! (twice). Oil on canvas. 5. 66 l l! M Sphinx. New York. Oil on canvas. 5 cm. 84 II 1| Study of a Baboon. 28. 1. Oil on canvas.146 1945 [ 2 | Figure in a landscape. 28. 5 (91 Study of a Figure in landscape. 198 x 137 cm. Oil on canvas. 159 |4] Figure Study I. 1954. 1953. 1953. 26 1952 [8] Landscape. 66 113| Triptych. 198 x 137 cm. 30 l ' 6 | Study after Velazquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X. London.G. London. 1944. 1952. Kunsthalle. Albright Knox Art (Jallerv-. 147. 139. 5 x 1 1 8 cm. I 10 x 108. Paris. Oil on canvas. 5 | 1 0 | Study for Crouching Nude. 75. Oil on canvas. Private collection. Brera Museum. Ulster Museum. 26. 24. T h e Arts Council of (ireal Britain. T h e T a t e Gallery. 29. 1954.5 x 198. Oil on canvas. Oil and cotton wool on canvas. 60 1944 \ 11 Triptych. 30 1953 | l l | Study for a Portrait. 1 5 2 x 1 1 7 cm. 123 1949 [5] Head II. 1 9 8 x 1 4 7 . 75. 1953. 1952. D. 51 [12] Two Figures.
40 1963 [31] lying Figure with Hypodermic Syringe. each p a n e l 1 9 8 x 1 4 7 .5 cm. 147.f * x 147. Private collection. 152. New York. T h e T f l Gallery. 1964. 5 cm. McCrory Corporation Collection. 28. 1 9 8 x 1 4 7 . Oil on canvas. Stedelijfc Museum. Stadelschcs Kunstinstilul unci Stadtische Galeric. 198 x 142 cm. 1962. 1 9 8 x 1 4 2 cm. 61 x 5 1 cm. 40 Switzerland. Oil on canvas. 76. 61 x 5 1 cm. Cilbert Halbers Collection. 7 4 x 6 7 .Index of Paintings 1955 119) Pope. 77. Musee national d'Art moderne. Private collection Switzerland. Three Figures in a Room. 1965. after the Life Mask of William Blake. 26. Oil on c a n v a s . Paris. 23.5 cm. Guggenheim Museum. 1 on canvas. Oil on canvas. 25 1956 122 J Man Carrying a Child. T h e Solomon R. 164 ' 165 . Oil on canvas. 1965. Oil |l. Private collection. Oil on canvas.5 cm. Private collection. 28. 26. New York. Private collection. 40 [24] Study for the S'urse in the Film -Battleship Potemkin. Kuntsammlun Nordrhein-VVcstfalen. 70. Diisseldorf. London. 26. 1955. Edwin J a n s s T h o u s a n d Oaks Collection. 1959.5 cm. Private collection. 198x 142 cm. 1 9 8 x 1 4 7 . 5 cm. 1966. 1963. 147 (twice). 1955. 149 1961 - [28] Reclining Woman. 60 1964 [33] triptych. Private collection. 5 x 141. California. 1957. 198 x 147.5 cm. 1963. Oil on canvas. 1956. Oil on canvas. Staatsgalcric M o d e r n e r Kunst.5 cm.5 x 116. 74 . 51 [20] Study for Portrait II. II. London.5 cm. Oil on canvas. 78 [34] I riptych. Oil on canvas. 1959. 17. 150 1959 [25] Lying Figure. 58. Three Studies for a Crucifixion. Switzerland. T h e T a t e Gallery. 198 x 147. after the Life Mask of William Blake. Index of Paintings 1962 [29| 'triptych. Oil on canvas. Oil on canvas. Crucifixion. Paris. each panel 1 9 8 x 1 4 5 cm.5 cm. 1955. 78.'i [26] Miss Muriel Belcher. 74. Oil on canvas. Three Studies for a Portrait of George Dyer (on Light Ground). 26. 5 cm. 150 1965 [35] triptych. Oil on canvas. Frankfurt. Oil on canvas.5x119. 1962. Centre GcorgcsPoinpidou. 25 [21] Study for Portrait III. 40 1966 1960 [27] Pope Xo. 153 (twice) 1957 [23] Study for a Portrait of Van Gogh II. I III) I. 2. 4. each panel 198x147. Munich. 152. Private collection. New York. 151. Oil on canvas. Amsterdam. Oil on canvas.5 cm. each panel 198 x 147. 149 [30] Turning Figure. 23. 23 1371 Portrait of George Dyer Talking. 1961. 5 cm. Oil on canvas. 76 twice). 1960. 1957. 198 x 147. New York. I 9 8 . 149 1361 After Muybridge Woman Emptying a Bowl of Water and Paralytic Child on All Fours. 23 | 3 2 | Man and Child. 76.
149 [45] Portrait of George Dyer Staring into a Mirror. 1968. Paris.5 cm. 1967.5 cm. each panel 198 x 147.Index of Paintings [38| Triptych. 42 Index of Paintings 1968 150] Two Studies for a Portrait of George Dyer. Private collection. Destroyed in a firc. 76 (twice). Oil on canvas. Mrs. L u g a n o . Berlin. 63. 76. Private collection. Private collection. 1967. 1969. Thru Studiesfm a Portrait of Lucian Freud. 152 |46] Triptych Inspired by 7. Finland. 78. 1969. 15. 1966. 18. 13 1967. Oil on canvas. Oil on canvas. Oil on canvas.5 cm. 119.| Michel Leiris Collection.5 cm. 1966. 3 . Oil on canvas. 3. 5 cm. 149. xv. 50 1511 Portrait of George Dyer in a Mirror. 198 x 147.5 cm. 18 [52| Two Studies of George Dyer with a Dog.5 cm. 3 5 . Private Collection. 58. Stern Collection. 147 [57] Second Version of-Study for Bullfight . 13 [44] Three Studies from the Human Body. 26. Oil on canvas.\'o.5 cm. 1968. 1966. Washington. pii! x I 17. 1967. Oil on canvas. 12. 150 166 > 167 . Oil on canvas. Oil on canvas. Oil on canvas. 198 x 147. Oil on canvas. each panel 198 x 147. 76. I'. 150 [49| Four Studies for a Self-Portrail. 1967. Thyssen-Bornemisza. S. 151 [39] Portrait of George Dyer Staring at Blind Cord. I.5 cm. Berlin. Oil on canvas.5 cm. I 9 8 x 147. 1967. Montreal. 40 [40] Portrait of George Dyer Riding a Bicycle. 15. each panel 1 9 8 x 1 4 7 . 5 cm. Nassau. Private collection. New York. 58. 78. 3 [56] Study for Bullfight No. J e r o m e L. 1970. 150 1967 [42) Portrait of George Dyer and Lucian Freud. 42.5X 152. each panel 198 x 147. Three Studies of Isabel Rawsthorne. Private collection. 1969 [55] Triptych.5 cm. 198 x 147. Oil on canvas. Oil on canvas.5. 13. Oil on canvas. Maestri Collection. 151 [48] Triptych. 1969. Gilbert de Botton Collection. 66. 9 1 . 41 [41] Study of Isabel Rawsthoriie. each panel 198 x 147. Oil and pastel on canvas. Oil canvas. 198 x 147. Oil oh canvas. Caracas. Canberra. 13. each panel 198 x 147. 149. 1969.5 cm. 23. New York. 84. Marlborough International Fine Art. Nationalgalerie. 23 [591 Study of . 5 cm. each panel 198 x 147. Oil on canvas. Nationalgalerie. 1966. Oil on canvas. 198 x 147.5 cm. Three Studies for a Self-Portrait. Private collection. 2. 150 1970 [60] Triptych.5 cm. 1968. 198 x 147. Oil and pastel on canvas. The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. Susan Lloyd Collection. 1967. Eliot's Poem •Sweeney Agonistes'. Three Studies of LuciAn Freud. Milan. Parma. Oil on canvas. 148.5 cm. 147 [541 Triptych.5 cm. 1968. each panel I 9 8 x 147. Oil on canvas. Private collection.Yude with Figure in a Mirror. 1. Brera Museum.C. Rome. Stern Collection. 5 x 3 3 cm. I 17 [58] Lying Figure. 77 1471 Portrait of Isabel Rawsthorne in a Street in Solio. 58. 5 x 3 0 . 1967.5 cm.5 cm. 198 x 147. 1968. New York. D. J e r o m e I. Sara Hilden Tampere Collection. 1 9 8 x 1 4 7 . 1. 21 [53] Triptych. National Gallery of Australia. 78. 198 x 147.5 cm. 1969.i 40 [43] Three Studies of Isabel Rawsthorne. 198 x 147. 74. Two Figures Lying on a Bed with Attendants.
26. 1974. Oil on canvas. 74. 198 x 147. 66 Index of Paintings 173] 'triptych. 1972. xviii. 18. 78. 14. Oil on canvas. New York. Oil on canvas. Oil on canvas. 198 x 147. Oil on canvas. London. 50 1721 Self-Portrait. 42. 92. Oil on canvas. New York. c a d i panel 198 x 147. 3 1671 Lying Figure in a Mirror.5 cm. 149. 198 x 147. Property of the artist. 2. August 1972. 147. 150 1971 [64] Study for a Portrait of Lucian Freud (Sideways).5 cm.5 cm. each panel 198 x 147. Oil on canvas. 28 [66] Two Men Working in a Field. Oil on canvas. 21. I. 6. each panel 198 x 147. 194ff. '"Heciion. 74.5 cm.80. 1. Oil on canvas. 15.5 cm. Tokyo. 1974. 1970. Gillicrl de Bolton Collection. collection. Private 183] Sphinx-Portrait of Muriel Belcher. 1978.5 cm. 50. T h e T a t e Gallery. xv. 198 x 147.5 cm. 1972. 147. 1976. 48. Museo de Arte Conlemporaneo de Caracas. Kunsthaus. 16. Three Portraits. 92. 17. 5 cm. Private collection. each panel 198 x 147. Marlborough International Fine Art. 198 x 147. London. 74 | 8 0 | Figure at a Washbasin. 1970. 3 3 . 198 x 147. J a p a n .5 cm. 4 1 . 40. 77. 1970. Oil on canvas. Three Studies of the Male Back.5 cm. 148 [63] Triptych. 198x 147. Oil on canvas. 1973. 18. Oil on canvas. Carter Pot lash Collection. May J u n e 1973. 66 [70] Triplych. Oil anil pastel on canvas. Oil on canvas. each panel 198 x 147. Oil on canvas. London. 198 x 1473 < in.5 cm. The Tate Gallery. each panel 198 x 147. 63 177] Seated Figure. 148 |62] Triptych. Private collection. 31 1979 1979. 19 1 9 8 x 1 4 7 . 149 1974 [74] triptych.Index of Paintings [61] Triptych. 198x 147. 1979. 1971. Trance. Three Studies oj Figures on Beds. Zurich. each panel 198 x 147. 75. 17. 21 1975 [78| Three Figures and a Portrait. 149 [75| 'Triptych. Madrid. 1971. Studies from the Human Body. 21. Oil and pastel on canvas.5 cm. Oil and pastel on canvas. 79. 1978 I'll | Painting. Ludwig Collection. 1971. Oil on canvas.5 cm. Private collection. Private collection. 1971. 152 '. Saul Sternberg Collection. May J u n e 1974. San Francisco. 80. Jacques Hachucl Collection. 1976. Oil on canvas. each panel 198 x 147.5 cm. 151 1972 [68] Portrait of a Man Walking Dmcn Steps.5 cm. Museo de Bellas Artes. 198 x I 17. Oil and pastel on canvas. A. 147 [761 Sleeping Figure. 149 |69] Triptych. Wallraf-Richartz Museum. 1 [65] Second Version of'Painting. Bilbao. 84. New York. Private 182] Jet of Water. 31 1G8 169 .5 cm.5 cm. 1975. 76. each panel 198 x 147. March 1974. 198 x 147. 152 1973 [711 Triplych. Brussels.5 cm. 1973. Private collection. Oil on canvas. 3. San Francisco. Private collection. Private collection.5 cm. 22 1976 179] Triptych. 3 66. each panel 198 x 147. National Museum of Mcxlcrn Art.5 cm. Monte Carlo. 17. 16. Private collection. xvii. Oil on canvas. 145. 1 9 8 x 1 1 7 . Oil on canvas. Studies of the Human Body. 78. 5 cm.5 cm.
each panel 198 x 147. New York. •80 x 360cm. Oil on canvas. New York. National Gallery. 1980. Private collection. 5 cmPrivate collection. c. Three Standard Stoppages. Oil and pastel on canvas. 1297 1300. 10 1106] Greco. 1983. 1 9 8 x 1 4 7 . Oil on canvas. Studies from the Human Body.5 cm. 1 x 7 1 . 31 1891 Study from the Human Body. 40 [103] Duchamp. 198 x 1 17. Philadelphia Museum of Art. 198x 147. La Belle Angele. Paul. 198 x 147.5 cm. Oil on canvas. Pastel on tracing paper. 130 x 195 cm. Iglesia de Santo Tome. 1981 [86] Sand Dune. [91] Study of the Human Body. A Modern Olympia (The Pasha). 1504 6. 9 I'071 Michelangelo Biionarotti. 198 x 147. 22 1102] D u c h a m p . 146 x 89 cm. 1982.5 cm. London. 1586 8. Oil on canvas. 170 171 . Private collection. 198 x 147. each 125. xv. Marcel. Private collection. 1912. 2). 1 0 4 x 9 8 cm. Oil on canvas. 198 x 147.5 cm. 160 1982 [88] A Piece of Waste Land. Music d'Orsay. Toledo. Marcel. 1900 6. I l l I Hi")] Giotto. \|. | 9 8 | Cezanne. 88 1101 ] Degas. Museum "I Modern Art. 1979. 1 9 8 x 1 4 7 . Edgar. 1983 [93| Statue and Figures in n Street. California. 31 Paintings by Other Artists 1980 [85] Carcass of Meat and Bird of Prey. 1982. (. Paris. 1983. Oil on canvas. [95] Study from the Human Body. 1913-14. Centre Gcorgcs-Ponipidou. 1982. Paris. Figure in Movement. Italy. 1981. Private collection. Oil on canvas. Legend of St Francis. New York. 70 | 9 9 | Cezanne. Oil and pastel on canvas. Upper Church. El | Domenico Theotocopoulos). xv. Oil on canvas. 1873-4. 1983. Index of Paintings 196] Triptych. Paris. Woman in a Green Hat (Madame Cezanne).5 cm. 5 cm. Paul. Ernst Beyeler Collection. Oil a n d pastel on canvas. John "" Baptist Tondo Doni. After the Bath: Woman Drying Herself. Oil on canvas.4 x 18. 46 x 55. Three threads glued upon three glass panels. 95 11011 Gauguin. Francis. Oil on canvas. Oil on canvas. Oil on canvas. 1982. 5 cm. 100. Property of the artist. Private collection. Spain. 198 x 147. Panel 19.1 cm. Fresco. Florence.Index of Paintings [84] Triptych. Switzerland. The Bathers. Property of the artist. 1894 5. 1982. The Burial of the Count of "'. 1 9 8 x 1 4 7 .2x81. Marlborough International Fine Art. 1889. Oil and pastel on canvas. T h e Barnes Foundation. Musee d'Orsay. Menil's Foundation Collection^ Houston. 7 1 . Property of the artist. Nude Descending a Staircase (No.•": AY Fntierro del Conde de Orgazi. 1981. [921 Study for a Self-Portrait.5 cm. Paul. Oil and pastel on canvas. Oil and pastel on canvas.5 cm. Basel. San Francesco. Pennsylvania. c. [97] Sand Dune. [91] Oedi/ius and the Sphinx after Ingres. London. Amhrogio Bondone. Stigmatizalion of St. 1888 92. 198x147. 1983. 31 [87] Study of Man Talking.iiil>oroiigh International Fine Art.5 cm. Oil on canvas. 1983. xv. 198 x 147. National Gallery.5 cm. each panel 198 x 147. Assist. T h e Louise and Walter Arcnsberg Collection. 2 7 0 x 2 3 0 cm. alleria degli Uffizi. 1 cm. The Holy Family with the Infant St. Oil on canvas. 92 x 73 cm.5 cnv| Musee national d"Art modcrnc. Merion.5 cm. Oil on canvas. Paul. 88 11001 Cezanne.5 cm. |9()| Study of the Human Body from a Drawing by Ingres.2 cm.
In English in die original. 73 1109] Tintoretto. Oil on canvas. ed. Venice. Creation of the Animals. M.Xightwatch {The Company of Frans Ha/ming (. 8 1 . 12 13." Interviews. Chapter 1: The Round Area. We thank the publishers. 3 cm. 7." See Discours. " Author's Preface to the English Edition I N . 1972). 7he Brutality of Fact: Interviews with Francis Bacon 1962 1979. Rome." The French word trait. Interviews. London.. nans. "'/raits asignifianlS. the author. 141 [112] Velasquez. Galleria Doria-Pamphili. Samuel Beckett. with minor emendations. 1970). 10 [ 110| T u r n e r . 1995).5 x 122 cm.Index of Paintings 11081 Rembrandt van Rijn. 3] 1111 ] V a n Gogh. translated by the author into EngHsh as The Lost Ones (London: Caldcr & Boyars. W. early Augusi 1888. c. See David Sylvester. Muse urn of fine Arts. 151 X 258 cm. 3rd edn. K.5 x 116. Diego. 2 x 6 5 . pp. Snowstorm Steam Boat off a //arbour's Mouth Making Signals in Shallow Water. 91. pp. Oil on canvas. lj De'peupleur [The Dcpopulator] (Paris: Minuit. and thus throughout the book. The critique of the "figurative" both "illustrative" and "narrative" is a constant theme of (lie book. Lisa Liebniann. New York: Thames & Hudson. The Netherlands. Oil on canvas. 23. Rijksmuseum. p. p. like its English 172 173 . Aries. 1842. Gontarski (New York: Grove Press. and Going by the Lead. T N . 1642. 1550. 68 9. Oil on canvas. the Ring Jean-Francois Lyolard uses the word "figural" as a substantive in older to oppose it to die •"figurative. 53 Notes oics by the translator are preceeded by the abbreviation " I N . J a c o p o . Boston. Portrait of the Postman Joseph Roulin. T N .5 cm. T N . Gallerie dellAccademia. . 3 6 3 x 4 3 7 cm. T h e T a t e Gallery. and the translator for their permission to reproduce it here. T h e English text is included in Samuel Beckett: The Complete Short Prose. 1987 . J. Figure (Paris: Klincksieck. 1972). 152. pp. S. which we shall cite hereafter as "Interviews. 1929 1989. Pope Innocent X. Amsterdam. Vincent. 1650. This text first appeared in Arlforum J a n u a r y 1984). Oil on canvas.01/ Preparing to March Out). 202-23: 202.
equivalent, is derived from the Latin tractus, the past participle of trahrre, to draw. The term has two primary senses: etymologically it refers to a graphic line. or. more specifically, to the action of drawing a line or set of lines (a stroke, a draft, a "touch" in a picture); by extension, it is also used to designate a distinguishing quality or characteristic mark, a feature that allows one to identify or recognize a thing. LVlcuzc often refers to both meanings: it is the marks or strokes on the canvas that introduce traits of animality into the human figure, thereby constituting a ""zone of indiscernibilily" between the h u m a n and the animal. Since the English term is most commonly used in the latter sense, however. I have occasionally translated trail as "stroke'" in those contexts where the literal meaning is predominant, that is. when Deleuze is referring to the activity of the artist's hand on the painting (as when one speaks of "a stroke of the pencil" or "brush stroke"). I N . Deleuze is here following the terminology of Alois Riegl, who distinguished between the tactile takli\ch perception of the work of art, for which the viewer has to be close to tin- object .Xahsicht); and an optical (oplisch) perception. Ibr which a view from a distance (Femsicht) is best suited. I have generally translated vue /troche as '"close viewing" and vision eloigner as "distant viewing." Erwin Panofsky, in Meaning in the Visual Arts (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubieday Anchor Books, 1955), notes that the German word taktisch, "'normally denoting "tactical" as opposed to "strategic,' is used in art-historical German as an equivalent of "tactile" or even 'textural' as well as "tangible" or "palpable"' (p. 330). For the term " h a p t i c , " see note 2 to Chapter 14. We here cite the complete text: Francis Bacon: "'In thinking about them as sculptures it suddenly came to me how I could make them in paint, and do them much better in paint. It would be a kind of structured painting in which images, as it were, would arise from a river of flesh. It sounds a terribly romantic idea, but I see it very formally." David Sylvester: ""And what would the form be?" Bacon: " T h e y would certainly be raised on structures." Sylvester: "Several figures?" Baton: "Yes, and there would probably be a pavement raised high out of its naturalistic setting, out of which they could move as though out ol pools of flesh rose the images, if possible, of specific people walking their daily round. 1 hope to be
able to do figures arising out of their own flesh with their bowler hats and their umbrellas and make them figures as poignant as a Crucifixion" I Interviews, p. 83). And on p. 108. Bacon adds: "I've thought about sculptures on a kind of armature, a very large armature made so that the sculpture could slide along it and people could even alter the positions of the sculpture as they wanted." Writing of Jacques Tali, who is also a great artist of fields, Andre Bazin says, "Indistinct sound elements are rare On the contrary. Tali's shrewdness consists of destroying clarity by clarity. The dialogues arc not incomprehensible but insignificant, and their insignificance is revealed by their very precision. Tali succeeds in this by deforming the relations of intensity between planes." Andre Bazin. Qu'est-ce que le cinema? (Paris: Editions du Gerf, 1958), vol. 1, Onlologie el langage, p. 114. [TN. T h e abridged English translation of Bazin's work, What Is Cinema?. 2 vols., trans, a n d cd. by Hugh Gray (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), does not include this text.] " Michel I.eiris. Au versa de.\ images (Montpellier: Fata Morgana. 1975), p. 26. (TN. For Lciris' writings on Bacon in English, see Michel I.eiris, Francis Bacon: Full Face and in Profile, trans. J o h n W'eightman (New York: Rizzoli, 1983); and Michel Lciris. Francis liacon. trans. J o h n W'eightman (New York: Rizzoli. 1998).]
Chapter 2: Note on Figuration in Past Painting
See Interviews, pp. 28 9 Bacon is asking himself how Velasquez could stick so close to "figuration." And he answers, on the one hand, that photography did not yet exist: and on the other hand, that painting was still connected to a religious sentiment, even if it was a vague one.) Interviews, p. 30. W'e will have to return to this point, which explains Bacon's attitude toward photography, which is one of both fascination and mistrust. In any case. Bacon criticizes the p h o t o g r a p h for something completely different than being figurative.
. Voles
.Vott s
Lewis Carroll. Alice in Wonderland, chapter 6: " I t vanished quite slowly . . . ending with the grin, which remained some time after the rest of it had gone." The Complete Works oj Lewis Carroll New York: Modern Library, n.d.l, p. 74. Interview.', p. 48. We cannot here follow J o h n Russell, who confuses the order of the triptych with the succession of panels from left to right: he sees on I he left a sign of "sociability." and in the center, a public discourse. Even if the model were a prime minister, it is not clear how the disquieting smile could pass lor a sociable one, or the scream in the center, for a discourse. See J o h n Russell, Francis Bacon, rev. ed. i New York: Oxford University Press, 1979), p. 94. Mai derives from " m a c u l a , " the color-patch \tache] (hence malen. to paint; Xtaler, painter). Wolfflin uses the word Malerisch to designate t h e pictorial in opposition to t h e linear, or more precisely, the mass in opposition to the contour. See Heinrich Wolfflin, Principles of Art History: The Problem of the Development of Style in Later Art. trans. M. 1). Hottinger New York: Dover. 1950). p. 3. [ T N . Following Deleuze, 1 have left the term malerisch untranslated in the text. In justifying this practice. Herbert Read, in his introduction to Wolfflin's Classic Art. trans. Peter and Linda M u r r a y London: Phaidon Press. 19521, writes that the term malerisch "is a word absolutely essential to the discussion of stylistic problems in art, and purists must admit it into our language, for no other word is exact enough. It stands for that depreciation and gradual obliteration of line o u t l i n e and tangible surface) and for the merging of these in a "shifting semblance' of things it is an attempt lo represent the vague and impalpable essence of things. Fnglish readers who are familiar with the distinction Blake made between 'the hard and wiry line of rectitude' and the 'broken lines, broken masses, and broken colours." which he denounced as 'bungling.' will have already seized the full meaning of the w o r d " p. vi . On possible Fnglish equivalents, Panofsky notes that '"the ubiquitous adjective malerisch must be rendered, according to context, in seven or eight different ways: "picturesque' as in 'picturesque disorder"; "pictorial" [or, rather horribly, "painterly" as opposed lo "plastic':
Samuel Beckett. The Lost Ones, in Samuel Beckett: The Complete Short hose. 1929 1989. p. 202 see Author's Preface, note 2 . Joseph Conrad, The Nigger of the "Narcissus", in The Portable Conrad, cd. Morton Dauwen Zabel New York: Viking Press, 1947), p. 355. William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch New York: Grove Press. 1959), p. 9 1 . I N . See Interviews, p. 78.
Chapter 4: Body. Meat and Spirit. Becoming Animal
Felix Guatarri has analyzed these phenomena of the disorganization of the face: "faeiality traits" are liberated, which also become the animal traits of the head. See /,'Inconscienl machinique. Elements de uhizfi-analyzt Paris: Recherehes, 1979), p p . 7511'. Interviews, pp. 46 7. Franz Kafka, " T h e Sword." in Diaries 1914 1923. ed. Max BrodJ trans. Martin Green berg with H a n n a h Arendl New York: Schoeken Books. 1949), pp. 109 10. Interviews, pp. 23, 16. Jean-Christoph Bailly has included extracts of this very beautiful text by Karl Philipp Moritz 1756 93 . entitled Anton Reiser, in his La Legende dispersee. Anthologie du romantisme allemand Paris: Union
Generalc d'Kditions. 1976 . pp. :i.r> 43.
Interviews, p. 58: "Well, if you think of the great Rembrandt selfportrait in Aix-en-Provenee. for instance, and if you analyze it. you will see that there are hardly any sockets to the eves, that it is almost completely anti-illustrational."
Chapter 5: Recapitulative .Vote: Bacon's Periods and Aspects
Interviews, p. 56: "You would love to be able in a portrait to make a Sahara of the appearance to make it so like, yet seeming to have the distances of the S a h a r a . " Interviews, p. 58: "I've always wauled and never succeeded in painting the smile."
'dissolved,' 'sfumato,' or 'non-linear' as opposed to 'linear' or
clearly defined'; 'loose' as opposed lo 'tight'; 'impasto' as opposed to ' s m o o t h ' " Panolsky. Meaning in the Visual Arts. p. 330 .| On the three periods distinguished by Sylvester, sec Interviews, p p . 118 20. We are currently familiar with six paintings of [his new abstraction other than the four previously cited, a Landscape of 1978. and the 1982 Water Flowing from a Faucet.
suggestions, and when Sylvester, on another occasion, says to him that "the Pope is the Father." Bacon politely responds. " I ' m not quite sure I understand what you're saying . . . " Interviews, p. 71 . For a more developed psychoanalytic interpretation of Bacon's paintings, see Didier Anzieu. Is Corps de I'auvre i Paris: Gallimard. 1981), pp. 333 40.
Chapter 6: Painting and Sensation
Henri Maldiney. Regard parole es/rnce (Lausanne: Editions I'Age d ' H o m m e , 1973). p. 136. Phenomcnologists like Maldiney or Merleau-Ponty see Cezanne as the painter par excellence. They analyze sensation, or rather, "sense experience" \Ie sentir], not only insofar as il relates sensible qualities to an identifiable object (the figurative moment:, but insofar as each quality constitutes a field that stands on its own without ceasing to interfere with the others the " p a l h i c " moment). Hegel's phenomenology short-circuits this aspect of sensation, which nonetheless forms the basis for every possible aesthetic. See Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception (London: Rouiledge & Kegan Paul. 1967i. pp. 207 42, and Maldiney. pp. 124 208. D. H. Lawrence. "Introduction to These Paintings," in Phoenix: The Posthumous Papers of D. II. Lawrence (193d) New York: Viking Press. 1972), pp. 578 9. T . \ . Interview), p. 58 (and also pp. 53, 66). Interviews, p. 18. Interviews, p. 6 3 . Interviews, p. 65.
Interviews, p. 83. 108 12. I N . See Jean-Christophe Bailly. ed.. La Ugende dispersed (sec C h a p t e r 4, note 5), p p . 35 4 3 . See Maldiney. Regard parole espace. pp. 147 72, on sensation and rhythm, systole and diastole land the pages on Cezanne in this regard). : " Interviews, p. 78 80.
Chapter 7: Hysteria
Anlonin A n a u d , " T h e Body is the Body." trans. Roger McKeon. Semiolexl(e), vol. 2, no. 3 (1977). p p . 38 9. Wilhelm Worringer, Form in Gothic (New V'ork: G. P. Putnam. 1927), pp. 32 151. William S. Burroughs. Saked Lunch New York: Grove Press. 1959 . p. 9. Burroughs, Saked Lunch, p. 131. O n e might consult any nineteenth-century manual on hysteria, but see especially the study by Paul Sollier. Lei Plicnonicnes d'autoscopie Paris: .Mean. 1903 i, who created the term "vigilambulator." Anlonin Artaud. " T h e Nerve Meter." in Anlonin Artaud: Selected Writings, ed. Susan Sontag. trans. Helen Weaver New York: Farrar. Straus & Giroux. 1976 , p. 86. Ludovic Janvier, in his Beckett par tui-meme Paris: Seuil. 1979 . had the idea of making a lexicon of Beckett's principal notions. These are operative concepts. T h e articles entitled "Corps." "Kspacc temps," "Immobiliie." " I ' e m o i n . " "'Fete." and "Yoix" ["Body."
These are all constant themes in the interviews. " I N . See Interviews, pp. 2 1 . 28, 43. I I . 46, 56. 58 59. 66. " Interviews, p. 28. "' Interviews, p p . 84 6. Interviews, p. 58 "coagulation of non-representational marks"). '" T N . Interviews, p. 48. Interviews, pp. 76 81 land p. 47: "I have never tried to be horrific" Interviews, p. 43. Bacon seems lo rebel against psychoanalytic
"Space-Time," "Immobility," "Witness." "Head." and "Voice"]
should be noted in particular. F.ach of these articles has parallels with Bacon. And it is line that Bacon and Beckett are too close lo
know this themselves, But one should refer i > Beckett's text on the <
painter Bram van Vclde. " L a Pennine des van Yaldc. ou le niondc
p. p. 3.Xothingness) have their place in a hysterical painting. Enrighi New York: Modern Library. vol. Many things in it could apply to Bacon notably the absence of figurative and narrative relations as a limit of painting. 78 80: "If life excites you. 3. and in the way in which a human body makes a coherent Structure when it walks downstairs. not of the spectacle. note 5). like a shadow. II. Henrietta Monies in the Three Studies of 1963 is not moving from left to right or from right to left.) Franz Kafka. 346 7. Marcel Proust. 260. Interviews. J. 118 32. I. 1). but to superimpose appearances. see pp. as cited in Klaus Wagenbach. unrepresentational." Interviews. Swarm's War. trans. A la recherche du temps perdu. 47.. Part I (Paris: Pleiade. Franz ha/ka: anne'es de jeunesse. pp. vol.'<• que m'ont ilit les peintures de Francis Bacon I Paris: Maeght. Le Temps relrouve Paris: Pleiade. ( 14 Interviews. 123: Duchamp "was interested in process as a subject for painting. pp. 37. pp. See (. 5. C. K. 1967i. I). J. 352. 3. vol. rev. . 1993 . I). 1. 34 7 and 48 50. p. p. vol. note 2). 1984)." Interviews. 1971). letter to Brod. whatever their message might be. Michel Leiris has devoted a superb text to this action of "presence" in Bacon. One's basic nature is totally without hope. Scoti Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin. I). pp. 1993). 156: "Diabolical powers. cd. 28 9. p. are knocking al the door and already rejoicing in the fact that they will arrive soon. Lawrence. C. The Guermantes Way. and yet one's nervous system is made out of optimistic stuff. vol. trans. even if that structure is never revealed completely at any one moment in time. but you are aware of it in the same way that you arc aware of life . In Search of Lost Time. Chapter 9: Couples and Triplychs 9 "' Sartrean themes such as excessive distance (the root of the tree in Ynuscii oi of the lligln ol the both oi the world as il down the toilet drain in Being and .'" And on what Bacon calls his "greed for life. in Disjecta: Miscellaneous Writings and a Dramatic Fragment. Lnrighl New York: Modern Library. Marcel Proust. p. Marcel Proust. 580. K. l. part 2 Paris: Pleiade. The Captive. Perhaps not excite you. 48. note 5).. K.e Dieu Mozart el le monde des oiseaux (Paris: Gallimard. K. Ruby Colin 'New York: Grove Press. p." Bui il is a question of forces. 30 1. 55. A la recherche du temps perdu. 48. Marcel Proust. C. Bacon regrets that his ' 180 181 . vol. Chapter 8: Painting Forces See Russell. In Search of Lost Time. they're extremely. 1954). Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin: rev. 879. Du ciite chez Swnnn. In Search of Lost Time. in ways different from those vouchsafed to us in life. D.. Time Regained. trans. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin: rev. C. trans. p. pp. 271 translation modified . 1954). p. . p. Marcel Proust.)." Russell. Lnrighl New York: Modern Library.Votes screams still remain "too abstract. p. A la recherche du temps perdu. 1 ' Interviews. vol. 1993 . .). 1951 . one on lop of the Other. 48. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin: rev.. its opposite. A la recherche du temps perdu.Votes el lc panialon" fl948i. death. 5011 translation modified and emphasis added : Marcel Proust. 1 I N . See Bacon's statements on the scream in Interviews. In Search of Ijisl Time. hi I'riunmiere. 104: "I wanted to make an image which coagulated this sensation of two people in some form of sexual act on the bed . pp. must excite you. in a sense. Il is line thai in the latter text. Francis Bacon sec Chapter 5. 2. Marcel Proust. Interviews. p. p. Part 2 (Paris: Pleiade.'" because he thinks he has missed "what causes someone to scream.and if you look at the forms. "Introduction to These Paintings'' see Chapter 6. 6." his refusal to make the game a deadly wager. 1883 1912 Paris: Mereure. Francis Bacon (see Chapter 5. Lnrighl New York: Modern Library. Marcel Proust. . Is Cole de Guermantes. vol. 122 5). p. . 1993). 1954). p. Bacon's object is not to show successive appearance. Marcel More. 1966).
Aole. J o h n Russell has analyzed Bacon's attitude toward the photograph in his chapter entitled " T h e Prehensile Image. a flower that is neither "specified" nor "the most beautiful"!. later." pp. Frauds liacmi sec Chapter 5. 1999). appears constantly in the interviews. trans. 39 4 3 . 50 3. Felix Aprahamian (London: Stainer & Bell. 576. 579 80. Interviews. Photogenic Painting: (lilies Deleuze. trans. 346. Interviews. p. trans. Interviews. Critique of Pure Reason. p. pp. : Kennikat Press. 1981 . p. Wilold Combrowicz. p. in pp. "Anticipations of Perception. 36 8: and Antoine Colca. 37. p. Interviews." see Mcssiaen's analysis in Claude Samuel. in spite of theoretically longing for the image to be made up of irrational marks. 131.'hatlerley's Lover (New York: Grove Press." in Sarah Wilson. 121. p. 1966). Interviews. uvres en prose I Paris: Pleiade. 12: "I don't know how the Ibrrn can be made . showed the importance of the episode of the fall. in his analysis of Flaubert. from the point of view of a "hysterical engagement. p p . trans. Conversations with Olivier Messiaen see Chapter 9. Rencontres aver Olivier Messiaen (Paris: Julliard. 201 8. Carol Cosmaii C h i c a g o : University of Chicago Press. Writing of R e m b r a n d t ' s Night Watch. notably from the point of view of colors: Paul Klee has shown this in his practice of painting as much as in his theoretical texts. "Introduction to These Paintings" (i. Russell. T h e most interesting cases. cd. apart from any aesthetic value. Because. especially on pp. Conversations with Olivier Messiaen. of added or subtracted value. pp. Chapter II: The Painting before Painting I). I he Family Idiot: (instate Flauherl. has analyzed several types of relation between photography and painting: see Michel Foucault. or by accident. 1976). 1965). Pornogra/iliia. 1949*. 1961). p. I've over-talked about it. note 9 . Interviews. note 51. pp. pp." pp. Martin's Press. 1821 1SH7. 56 7. Y Y . Elsie Pell (Port Washington. 50 67. inevitably illustration has to conic into it to make certain parts of the head 182 183 . \ ules Paul Claudel. Michel Foucault. 81 104. p. pp. 43fF. . p. are those where the painter integrates the photograph. The Eye Listens." but he gives ii far loo negative a meaning. pp. 13. 3011. The theme of marks by chance. even though he recognizes that the fall fits into a long-term. like Fromanger. notably Hasard el prohahilile Paris: Presses L'niversitaires de France. 10 8. 63 64.Vole: What Is a Triptych? 1 On this notion of rctrogradable rhythm and. note 5 ) . or the photograph's action. Alastair Hamilton London: Calder & Boyars. See Puis Servien. active. "Photogenic Painting. It is not surprising that the same problems arc posed in painting. Lawrence.. Norman K e m p Smith : London: St. Interviews. see Chapter D. trans. In his Francis Bacon (see Chapter 5. pp. Immanuel Kant. AI66/B207 A176/B2I8. On the essential notion of the "rhythmic character. writing on Gerard Fromanger. 10 . " ) . 54 71. and chance as the mode of a choice that was neither scientific nor aesthetic (to choose a flower by chance. 92. 19291. Gerard Fromanger | London: Black Dog. Sartre. 569. 95 9." Paul Claudel. pp. In the framework of his distinction between a "language of the sciences" and a "lyrical language. p. H. 1969 . Claudel spoke of the "disintegration brought to a group bj light. . (And Bacon's condemnation of all his paintings that still contain a figurative violence. see Mcssiaen's comments in Claude Samuel. H. 122 4). Jean-Paul Sartre. Bacon notes that his best friends contest what he calls " c h a n c e " or "accident": see Interviews pp. Laurence. 577. 1429. Lady (." the author opposed probability as the object of science. but 1 don't know how lo do it" and p. Chapter 10: .) Interviews. Clearly Bacon docs not make roulette a type of action: see his considerations of Nicolas tic Stael and Russian roulette.s " Interviews. 100: "I know what I want to do. 126: "When we've talked about the possibility of making appearance out of something which was not illustration. that is. and positive project. 19591. Interviews. note 2 . Foucault.
Jules Oliiski. pp. On these new blind spaces. 89 90. p. But you see. and you survey the thing like you would a sort of graph \diagramme\. 56: "You see within this graph [diagranwte] the possibilities of all types of fact being planted. 148. as i'ocillon says. a photograph of a rhinoceros for the texture of the skin [Interviews. T N . 90 2. 105 7. pp. pp. Georg Schmidt refers to the intersection of the two black sides of a square. n. See Interviews. d a b . Clemen) Greenberg [Art and Culture [Boston: Beacon Press. 19611 and Michael fried "Three American Painters: Rennelh Noland. or the disposition of the layers of color along right angles. 1973). "A propos de la destruction dc l'entite de surface. "I no longer feel the hand in it . patch. And you see within this graph the possibilities of all types of fact being planted." and the English language presents a rich variety of possible equivalents. but you suddenly see through this graph that the mouth could go right across the face. . p p . In order lo distinguish a true M o n d r i a n from a false one. 173 4." Interviews. referring lo Pollock's "all-over" drip paintings of 1947 51)." which culminates in abstract painting. on the possibility that involuntary marks contribute nothing and botch the painting. Charles B. Interviews. you maybe have to put the mouth somewhere. Delcuze introduces the term here in order to distinguish between two different conceptions of painting: the optical (the visual perception of line and color by the eye) and the manual (the application of traits and patches of color by the hand). Hogan and George Rubier New York: Zone Books. "Le Futur anterieur. trans. 149 151. p. See his Mondrian Paris: Reunion des musces nationaux. trans. J " Bacon: " N o . d a u b .d. Herhin: The Plastic Alphabet [exhibition catalogue! New York: Galcric Denisc Rcnec. splotch. and later. see Christian Bonnefoi's analysis of Robert Ryman. Here is the very important text from the interviews: Bacon: "Very often the involuntary marks are much more deeply suggestive than others. "Trails el laches. See Auguste Herbin. This is a difficult thing: I'm expressing it badly. Henri Maldiney has compared Cezanne and Klee on this point in Regard parole espace (see Chapter 6. in Art and Objeclhood: Essays ami Reviews [Chicago: University of Chicago Press. see Chapter 1. And in a way you would love to be able in a portrait to make a Sahara of the appearance lo make it so like. I have rendered the terra as " p a t c h " or "color-patch. blot. "ascetic frugality. T h e term tachisme was coined to refer to "pointillists" such as Seurat. if you think of a portrait. 229 33. note 1)." T h e Robert dictionary defines tache most generally as "a small space of different color in a field of uniform color. one would then only be ' making an abstract design. 1924)." in The Life of Forms in Art. " Sylvester: "You feel it while you're making those marks. T N . Bacon explains that when he docs a portrait. I 9 9 8 | were the first 184 185 ." Wittgenstein invoked a diagrammatic form in order to express "possibilities of fact" in logic. to the nonfigurative works of abstract expressionism or art informel. as when one says of a work. 56. in History of Art. Interviews. ' See Elie Kaure's famous lexl on Yclasquc/. I N .V«/i i Xott i and face which. such as spot. p. 1989). yet seeming to have the distances of the S a h a r a " Interviews. In another passage. p p . " Henri Focillon analyses this tendency. 124 6." in Macula 5 6 1979 . note 6. p. and so on.i. Interviews. by Waller Paeh New York: Harper S: Brothers. pp. Chapter 12: The Diagram T N . vol. . the marks are made... p p . 32). he often looks at photographs that have nothing to do with the model for example." For the translation of the term trail. for instance. Modern Arl. who used juxtaposed dabs or touches of uniform color to produce their figurative works. 4. This tendency to eliminate the manual has always been present in painting. 20 1. In English in the original. pp. blotch. stain. leading to a "kind of marshland." 13 Interviews. in " I n Praise of Hands. p.hand is fell all the same. 163 ti: and Yves-Alain Bois's analysis of Christian Bonnefoi." in Macula 3 4 : 1978). But. and those are the moments when you feel that anything can h a p p e n . frank Stella" 11965]. pp. 56). mark. smudge. tin. if one left ihcm out.
no matter how " m o d e m " they might be. mad with rage and wrath. But ihe possibility of enduring also depends on the framework or armature. ed. Conversations with Cezanne. 178. a viewpoint docs not create a motif because it lacks the necessary solidity and duration "I have here beautiful viewpoints. and that the term "action painting" might turn out to be aesthetically justified! Greenberg strongly emphasized the importance of this abandonment of the easel." Bacon often criticizes abstraction for remaining "on one level. and lo define them by a "strict opticality. but without seeming lo give this term the full meaning it assumes in Worringer's analyses One of Pollock's paintings is called.. which he himself opposes not to impressionism but to abstract expressionism. In that 18(i 187 . He called them the "slobbering school" (p. Kenneth Noland. for example. on the shoulder ol the. . ed.Voles to analyze ihe spaces of Jackson Pollock. ." The aim of these critics was doubtless to break witli (he extra-aesthetic criteria invoked by Harold Rosenberg when he coined the term •"action painting. ' Interviews. J o h n Rewald [Paris: Grassct. pp. Bamett Newman. Michel Doran. which is the text where Maurice Denis cites Serusicr. p. 227 8. a solidity. and. " W h y Do Things Have. the structure of the painting. . It seems that Fried had some doubts that he passed over far too rapidly see pp. and I think thai he has made. Sec Doran. and on the particular treatment of colors. Its one of the reasons I really don't like abstract expressionism. He raises the theme of the "gothic" in this context. Paul Cezanne. 94: '"You would never end a painting by suddenly throwing something at it. Ami Bacon will say. 105). 94: "I hate that kind of sloppy sort of Central European painting. Duchamp's painting seems 6 to be a symbolism or a "shorthand of figuration" [Interviews. The two criticisms leveled against the impressionists by Cezanne are. p. I think he is much better in (hat way. Morris Louis. . .the best taehisle or free marks thai have been made. Well. One finds in Bacon Ihe same demand for clarity and endurance. Correspondence. p. What drove Blake mad. " T h e solidity or endurance that Cezanne calls for must at the same timeagree with the pictorial material. 61: "Michaux is a very. when speaking of Duchamp. and therefore subject to formal Notes recent triptych. See Macula 2 (1977). 1978]. I did that at the very last moment." Chapter 13: Analogy See Joachim Gas(|uct's famous text in Conversations with Cezanne. The editor's reservations about the value of Gasquct's texts appear to me to be unfounded." See Gregory Bale-son. very intelligent and conscious man .Outlines. Maldiney seems to be. to have remained in an ephemeral state: "I wanted lo make impressionism something solid and enduring like the art of museums In these paintings of Monet. and the state of clarity to which the sensation is led. ed. 2 1 1 . . in making free marks." And p. Or would you." They reminded us that Pollock's works. And he attaches this "possibility of enduring" first of all to the material: "think of the Sphinx made of bubble gum . 27 32. But the question is whether or not opticality is the best criteria for these works. precisely. 2001). etc..'" "Oh yes. were people who took him for a madman.paint that goes like that. trans. but that docs not at all make a motif hair if necessary". p. to have remained at a confused state of sensation through their treatment of color. 28). criteria. especially in Pollock.. but it was also "some artists who painted pictures as though things didn't have.outlines. 114 15. 58l. but precisely in order to oppose him to Cezanne. in general." and for botching the "tension" {Intervieivs.Jackson Pollock. " [Interviews. than. for the Ix-st of them.figure being sick into the basin. p. has to be put in the llight of the w h o l e . pp. were paintings first and foremost. "Gothic"]. a framework in the present. the treatment of colors. "Dossier Jackson Pollock.*" in Steps toward an Ecology <>J Mind New York: Ballantinc Books. . pp. Significantly. Julie Lawrence Cochran Berkeley: University of California Press. 1972 .justified in using this text as the center of his commentary on Cezanne. like Monet. p. and I just left it. there's like a whip of white. Interviews. Bacon thinks that oil painting is a medium of both long duration and a high clarity. 232). that he admires him more for his attitude than lor his painting: to Bacon. 59 60]. Greenberg seems not lo see any alternative other than "easel painting" or " m u r a l painting" which seems to us instead to correspond to Mondrian's case).
es Ijirmes de . already in Cezanne. raised for an instant. Baits turle Hgne.of closeness. the History of Painting in His or Her Own Way . \ ole. Francis Bacon see Chapter 5. p.of the form and the. see especially the text by R. Riviere and J. Marc Chenetier. note 11. a miraculous beginning again of what has already expired: the curtain.. 192 . See Cowing. he reduces the diagram to a similitude of relations. a phenomenon. it is much more like a law of analogy. See Charles S. pp. but in Cezanne it takes on a particular importance around 1900. pp..: Kennikat Press. Lawrence Cowing has analyzed the modulation of color that Cezanne himself presented as a law of harmony." p. In his theory of the sign. 372 4. Bateson comes up against the problem of dolphins. Synthese analogique. founded on relations. it is true. We can call 'beautiful' only that which suggests the existence ol an ideal order supraterrestrial. p. -17: and p. Farm in Gothic see Chapter 7. p. trans. Chevreul used the term "harmonies of analogues. note 2 . 88 . But Cowing notes that. Paul Claude!. Chapter 14: Every Painter Recapitulate. like the. Conversations with Cezanne land for color. 1978). 105. 1991).. and logical and yet bears within itself.eii'is that struck Bacon very much: "'for Baudelaire.. Although Cowing reduces it to a •'conventional" code p. I. P. " from the Greek verb apto (to touch)." an entire '"upright scaffolding" which. the grain of sand that will foul up the entire. founded on conventional signs. in his Francis Bacon. 42: "'Before a picture of Rembrandt's one never has the sensation of permanence and deliniteiiess: it is a precarious realization.elitorc. which it thinks must sec things from close-up. see Doran. Nonetheless. On all these points. 204. the drop of poison. This modulation can coexist with other uses of color. colored patches '"imply not only volumes but axes. 200111.brand of an original sin. experiencing the presence.ground at the same place" {Regard parole espace |scc Chapter f>.. Schnerb. Interviews. p. they have renounced the kinesic and fecial signs that characterize the analogical language of other mammals: they nonetheless remained condemned to the analogical functions of this language..Y. Rome: Giorgio Bretsehneider I'. 1969). "in the spatial zone. In a line article." Clement Creenberg's French translator.'." John Russell.. [TN. armatures at right angles to the chromatic progressions. As Maldiney says. Gregory Bateson has a very interesting hypothesis on the language of dolphins in Steps to an Ecology qj Mind New York: Kallantine. 1985 . 81 90). We borrow the preceding analysis from Richard I'inhas. "Cezanne: T h e Logic of Organized Sensations. synthese digitate unpublished'.. N. This is something like the situation of the abstract painter. J a m e s Hoopes [Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press. "Classical M a n . pp. '"Cezanne's Studio. See Alois Riegl. I'. to codify them as such. 83. and digital or vocal language. Gerard Deledalle Paris: Seuil. Michael ' 1 188 189 . Peirce.Volt i ." pp. beauty cannot come into being without the intervention of something accidental. harmonious. does not designate an extrinsic relation of the eye to the sense of touch. 1972). ed. On organic representation. ed. suggests that "shallow d e p t h " be translated as profondeur maigre. 180 212 ." a type of vision distinct from the optical: Egyptian art has not yet made up its mind with rc-gard to the gaze. trans. remains virtual. see Wilhelm Worringer. l i t . the sense of sight behaves just like the sense of touch. Peirce attaches great importance to the analogical function and l<> the notion of the diagram.s ' TN. Interviews. an oceanographic expression that describes shallows or shoals \liaulsfinds] Manila 2. but a '"possibility of seeing \regard\.. chapter 5. but found themselves in the situation of having to "vocalize" them. is ready to fall again. This would be a second point common to both Bacon and abstract expressionism. The Eye Listens Port Washington. p. 195. A revised portion of this text has since appeared in Richard I'inhas.system" p. Rolf Winkes 2nd edn. note 5). "Cezanne: The Logic of Organized Sensations" in Conversations with Cezanne. ed. " In Abstraction ami Empathy: A Contribution to the Psychology »/ Style. 99. Because of their adaptation to the sea. the rogue element of incoherence. cites a text by Michel l. I'rirct on Signs: Writings on Scmiotic by Charles Sanders I'eircr. After having distinguished analogical language.Yifl-srlie Paris: 1'lammarion. 191 or a "metaphoric system" p. Cited in Russell. 50 . Late Roman Art Industry. " H a p l i c .
Worringer. . 21 'translation modified). Byzantine Painting: A Historical and Critical Study. 19 i translation modified . i!7 and p. I. 33 1|). while the other.Votes Bullock (London: Routledge & Regan Paul. T. <>r of the "Classic" world of the sixteenth century: light and shadows. analyses numerous examples of these colored sequences ipp.. renders the volumes through the sequence rose yellow emerald cobalt blue. Wollllin shows the importance of the straight stroke and the broken line that replace the curve: and with the portraitists. in how objects leil. pp. 241-6. in particular. pp. R. and red. 112 15 | it is Worringer who invented the word "expressionism. though it still maintains chiaroscuros. "Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti. Goethe's Color Theory. trans. Worringer insists on the two movements which are opposed to classical organic symmetry: the infinite movement of the inorganic line. 23. Its aim was to project the lines and forms of the organically vital. 191 and 200 1. in " C e z a n n e : T h e Logic of Organized Sensations" (in Conversations with Cezanne. " Defining the pure optical space of R e m b r a n d t . vol. the more active is the interest in the surface of things. Worringer writes. trans." See J o h a n n Wolfgang von Goethe. p. or the two portraits of a woman wearing a jacket. Principles of Art History. who has analyzed this aspect of tactileoptical space. is that which is neither blue nor yellow. 1953. 28. p. 168. Con:.Geneva: Skira. and Maldiney. We must wail for the seventeenth century to witness the liberation of shadow and light in a purely optical space. especially chapters I and 5. See pp. the fact that it combines a I'M) 191 . regard. pp. eds. 213)... the expression no longer comes from the contour. ed. outward in ideal independence and perfection. Flesh in Rembrandt is clearly rendered as a soft material. Rupprecht Matthaci. Wollllin.. note 1 p. 32 I . Riviere and J. but from strokes dispersed inside the form Principle oj Art History. 88: "a succession of colors progressing from warm to cool. with reproductions. P. 197 8 and further on Maldiney analyzes Byzantine art in detail as inventing a purely optical space. trans. 55 7 . de Witte (p. On the relations of tonality in Byzantine art. And in Form in (lot/iic. trans Stuart Gilbert . notably weight i "the more tin1 attention is withdrawn from the plastic form as such. in Doran. 201 ." as Dora Vallier shows in her preface to the French translation of this worki. 180 212). It is Wollllin. e. See Giorgio Vasari. 1970). and the peripheral and violent movement of the wheel or turbine pp.nations with Ce'zannr.. §§ 764 802." "a scale of very high tones" . 36. can have a very complex play but they nonetheless remain subordinate to the plastic form that maintains its integrity. Parole. But he also shows how this system of modulation could coexist with other systems in relation to a single motif: for example. whereas the oil version works through light and local tone. in Seated Peasant. A particularly striking example is given in the comparison of the two church interiors of Necfs the . Principles oj Art History see Chapter 5. yielding to pressure . See Heinrich Wollllin. p. the watercolor version works through sequence and gradation blue yellow rose). Regard parole espace. 325 442. Julie Lawrence Cochran |Berkeley: University of California Press.N. and colors. the euphony of the its rhythm and its whole inward being. note 6). It depends on its surroundings. Abstraction and Empathy. p. If we return to Byzantine art. 191 20U. one of which "is massively modeled in light and d a r k " p. 1963). Michel Doran. and a color can always be " h e a l e d " or "cooled.Villi's Elder and E. Herb Aaeh (New York: Von Nostrand Reinhold. p p . F. Principles of Art History. p. Wolfllin." And green and red are in themselves neither warm nor cool: green is the ideal point of the mixture of warm yellow and cool blue.space. ed. "' Paul Claudel." in Lives oj the Artists. '///-• Ax Listens. "This will did not consist in the wish to copy the things of the outer world or to render their appearance. . George Bull L o n d o n : Penguin Books. But all this leads Wollllin to state that optical space does not break with the tactile connections of form and contour without liberating new tactile values. so that warm and cool tones can be represented as separating from each other starting from green. on the contrary. 1965). pp. The warm or cool tonality of a color is essentially relative which does not mean subjective). see Chapter 13. and then tending to be gathered together in red through an "ascending intensification. thereby breaking with Greek space . see Andre Grabar. Lawrence Gowing. 2001]." Maldincy. " [pp. pp. Schnerb.
Mcxlcling by color. 1977). (see Chapter 13. another kind of contrast will result. P. temporal mold To mold is to modulate in a definitive manner. for in many cases they can be. which will be toned clown by the a n a l o g y . vol.Votes that is to say in the.. present a movement of contraction or expansion analogous to the warm and the cool. . Hut even Kandinsky. proposed the notion of the internal mold. 1964). Letter B(i.can refer to the recent analyses of Simondon: in modulation "there is never lime lo turn something out. . M. and one gets a broken tone. Complete Letters. they only partially destroy each oilier. C. [Delacroix] used the contrast of the complementary and the concord ol analogous colors at the same time: or in other terms. after a long trek through chiaroscuro. Riviere and J. 450. " Gilbert Simondon. Delacroix is to color . . Concerning the Spiritual in Art. to modulate is to mold in a continuous and perpetually variable m a n n e r . p. This being so. . the one in the pure stale. Black and white. . requires the use of a sophisticated array of colors that allows him to observe oppositions down to half-tones and to avoid white lights and black shadows. 3. 190. pp.. b r o k e n . vol. . which was his language. 192 193 . In order lo intensify and to harmonize the effect of his colors he Chapter 15: Bacon's Path 1 Interviews.looked upon as colors " Vincent Van Gogh. "When the complementary colors are produced in equal strength. "colorism" seems to us to be irreducibly haptic. 3 vols. the repetition «/ a vivid lint by the same broken tone. 88: "Cezanne's entire working method is determined by this chromatic concept of m o d e l i n g . 41 42. p. "Cezanne's Studio. . Van Gogh introduces die principles Of colorisni. See R. Hudson. p. this internal mold is related to the Newtonian conception of light. See W'assily Kandinsky. it was because he saw modeling as a succession of colors progressing from warm lo cool. p. Finally. His great interest lay in determining each of the colors exactly." Van Gogh. cle DOCK! London: Thames cS. Histoire naturelle dts nnimaux in uvres completes (Paris. their juxtaposition will intensify them each lo such a violent intensity that the human eye can hardly bear the sight of i t " Van Gogh. And in Bulfon himself. . while emphasizing the paradoxical character of this notion. 365 6. . 365.technical difference between molding and modulation. recognizes in the light dark values only a static and ""stationary"' movement. He believed that to replace one of them with the mixture of two neighboring ones would not be a r t . 2. T. in The Complete Letters of Vincent inn Cogh. and black and white. trans. but also the analogous in Rembrandt: what Rembrandt is to light. to Lniile Bernard second half of J u n e 1888 . light and dark. H. vol. Letter 401. 1058 . which are defined by primary and complementary colors. . 120. Sadler (New York: Dover Publications. . F.YDII i .same degree of vividness and brightness. p. because the circulation of the support of energy is equivalent to a permanent tinning out. for instance pure blue and gray-blue.of which is pure and the other. On the. vol. L'lndividu ct sa genist physico-biclogique Paris: Presses I'niversitaire de France. . 3. one. in Complete letters. pp. "Siifiice ii |o say that black and while are also Colors. which he derives from Delacroix rather than the impressionists (he sees the opposite in Delacroix. if two similar colors are placed next lo each other. 36-9. new contrasts may be born of the juxtaposition ol' two complementary colors. pp. modulation of colors with a rhythm of values implies that its spare is not uniquely optical. Conversations with Cezanne. because the mold is here supposed to "penetrate the mass. a modulator is a continuous. 2. ed. in the passages where he oscillates between a primacy ol tones or values." in Doran. If he avoided blending two tones by a simple turn of the brush. trans. 120. to T h e o .eclerc BulVon. Interviews. 18851. despite Ricgl."' See d o m i c cle Georges-Louis l." In the preceding letter to Theo Letter 101 . And next to pure tones. p. Van Gogh introduces broken tones: "If one mixes two complementary colors in unequal proportions. Schnerb. It was Million who. in relation to problems concerning the reproduction of living beings. '" T N . one. note I). One of the principal interests of Van Gogh's correspondence is that Van Gogh turned color into a kind of initiatory experience-. the Other broken. which will be a variety of gray. to remove it from the mold \demoulage\.
creates itself: the form will be all the better by assuring its unforeseen vigor. always new. and so on. vol. and color. Is Feu du signes (Geneva: Skira. Georges Dnthuit. And Gauguin. the inert ground. Gaugin's La Relle AngiU 1889 presents a formula that Bacon will also follow: the field. Van Gogh. . Is Sommeil de Yermeer. . . This text seems obscure. note 5). 6): " l o finish [the painting]. " Paul Gauguin.Xute on Color Man Lc Bot. " ) . ed. it suddenly suggested this whole image" p. Title of a work by Olivier Messiaen incorporating eighteen bird songs. and the line. which was content with the word taklische. "Espaces. see the very interesting text by J e a n Paris. I I . intensest blue . 1973). p.Votes See Gowing's analysis in "Cezanne: The Logic of Organized Sensations" sec Chapter 14. Maurice Malingue. 470): "What impassions me most much. . T N . since Bacon invokes two contradictory ideas . I am now going to become an arbitrary colorist. to Theo (in Complete Utters. As lor the other danger. letter to Bernard. 1965). II 13. light. In Bacon. in the ease of St. 93. I gradually made them." In the same way. p. pp. According to Huysmans's critique. Henri Focillon. Interviews.6. like a furnace burning fiercely. pp. He also studies arrows as spatial vectors. Sec Interviews. 6: "instead of painting the ordinary wall of the mean room. p. T h e word hapti\eh was coined l>\ Ricgl in response to certain criticisms. "Three American Painters" see Chapter 12. Oil has its own hie. pp. T h e color is a color remote from nature: imagine a confused collection of pottery all twisted by the furnace! All the reds and violets streaked by flames.il "' Van Gogh. l. 126. 1 12. 8 October 1888: "I have done a self-portrait for Vincent . 190 2. especially at the beginning. 189: . the head-Figure surrounded by a circle. p. Chapter 17: The Eve and the Hand T N . Francis Macon sec Chapter 5. 1949). J e a n Paris makes an interesting analysis of the halo from the viewpoints of space. a plain background of the richest. the image. "And then I made these things. letter to Shuffenecker. Letter 520. the purely indicative arrows seem to be the last residues of these saintly arrows. Interviews. Miroirs de Rembrandt. Bacon is thrown into the same problem in the malerisch period. The whole on a chrome background sprinkled with childish nosegays. It did not appear in the fust edition of Spdtriimische Kunstinduslrie 1901 I. vol. The room of a pure young girl . . 1 I ." in I. p. 510 (and p. trans. Espaces de Cezanne (Paris: Editions Galilee. which allow them to circulate more freely. painting tends to disengage itself from impressionism by put ling the dispersion of the tints which arc supposed to be reconstituted in our vision back into the large colored planes. vol. Van Gogh has often been reproached for the inertia of the background in certain of his canvases. Ursula. I paint the infinite. 245. . that he did not know how to avoid. a n d even attendant-object Chapter 16: .. early August 1988. 3.'Are 73 special issue on Francis Bacon .. p. note 10 . p." while misunderstanding the problem of the "passage of tones. its essential c l e a n n e s s . in Complete Utters. Henry J. "In effect. there are "scabby and dull colors" in Gauguin. much more than all (he rest of my metier is tin. So that I don't think the bird suggested die umbrella.Votes Inlervieu \. the seat of the painter's menial struggles." Van Gogh. " I n Praise of H a n d s " see Chapter 12. .portrait. it is even the reason why he most often criticizes acrylics. 3. . Sebastian. . just as the gyratory circles for the coupled Figures are residues of halos. St. In l. the modern portrait. note 14). p.e Soleil de Van Gogh. Rather than being recomposed in our vision. 121. I962K p. 1890 (in Complete Utters. Slenning i Cleveland: World Publishing Co. letter to his Sister.'Fspaee et le regard (Paris: Editions du Seuil. pp. " Cezanne reproached Gauguin for having stolen from him his "small sensation. T N . note 16). 157 84. Russell. I seek it in color " 194 195 . whereas one knows in advance how acrylic paint is likely to behave. . 3. Michael Fried. See Interviews. 135. Bacon adds. Letters to His Wife and Friends. Bacon also confronts it. p.
26. 113 14. d u g 20 1. affective 4 5 : derisor) athletics 15. 157. 1971 . from the Talking Heads album Remain in Light. 117: versus the figurative 2. as structure 30 art in/onrirl 104 6. and not optical. and color 120. 110. a n d presence 114. 12: "'The next day I tried to take it further and tried to make it more poignant. and spirit 20 An/ieu. [06. 7(1. of the Figure 14 attendant r h y t h m 71 85. 148. 2 1 . J a p a n e s e I I I . variation 13. 24. I thank Timothy Murphy for this reference. 50. p. Pearl Sanders New York: Crosset & Dunlap. 36. and Brian Eno. in Cezanne 8 7 . even with a complementary: in ellect. J e r r y Harrison. retrogradation ol panive rhythm 75: . See alw r h y t h m attendant s xviii.also pp. origin of t e r m "expressionism" 190 n. 1 See Interviews. as the "manifestation" of an essence 125. calves 25: dead xiv. 119. 6: a n d body without Otgani 11: a n d presence VI: relation to Baton 15. produced by Brian Eno (Sire Records. 15. See also abstract expressionism art 25. their a n t o n o i m 56. as a means of surpassing figuration 31. See Michelangelo: The Painter. In English in the original. 113. Didier 178 n. 179 n. gray. and we lose the heterogeneity of the tension. bird s> 12.. pig 19 20. p. p. Bacon critiques as a " m e s s " 109." by David Byrne. their clinical essence 54. we are already given what is in question. 58. Of course.. creates a code 104. 69: classical 46. Chris Frantz. MM 6. (Jrcenlx-rg's interpretation of 107. as a constant 71: "halt* aerial" 73: explicit types 74: not fall HO 2. a n d the 117 18. as assessing . In a short icxt on Michelangelo. and sensation 39 analog) 91. as a pictorial inrbrality 53 . " Interviews.'" A logic of painting here meets up with notions analogous to those of Wittgenstein. but a relationship between an intention al the beginning. 33. 171 n. of resemblance 157.b r e a t h s 113 aits. as nouretrogradable 75. and an entire series nr ensemble at the end. but much less so. 56. a n d free marks 9 1 . In any case. ami chaos 103 -I: produces its own clkhcfl 89. 145. 17.''aesthetic" 116. 9 8 . Internum. I aflcci versus feeling 39 afterward 49. 186 ii. Carl. northern 46: primitive 141. See also painting history ol Ait. 9. a n d man 2 1 . 90. IMKK ol 35. buffalo 20. but the " b r o k e n " tone. 185 n. postures of 114. . Tine Weymouth. current evolution of 106. action painting 110. a n d lacialily 2 1 . in photography 90. b) isomorphism 114 15. 14. the color could be broken with the optical gray. 98. not definable b\ a clear-cut theory 114. 131. conserves the sensible heterogeneity or the tension of colors. 50. trans. 67. Gray as a power puissance] of broken color is very different from gray as the product of black and white. T h e mixture of complementary colors produces gray. The reference is to the song "'Crosseyed and Painless. 56. pp. 90 a r m a t u r e xiv. Gothic 46. and the d i a g r a m 157. 54: in H e g d 178 u. 66. two forms of 115 A n d r e . 'IN. 24. laws of 125 6. a n d the smile 28 abstract expressionism xvii. p. or the millimetric precision of the mixture. 117. I I : in Gothic art 130. Luciano Bellosi has shown how Michelangelo destroyed the narrative religious feet in favor of a properly pictorial or sculptural feet.uu\ sleeping figures 77 aesthetics: and the clinical 51. planar sculptures of HHi animal s 16. bat 20. becomes splendor 52. and resemblance. in Christian painting 124." Sec. Set aha beforehand kfsiatm ambivalence ol fceliui> 39: and psychoanalysis 59. and I lost the image completely. utilized 96 active r h y t h m xviii. and s( r e a m . 59. 7| 85. as modulation 196 197 .111 21. 12. 8ft: flattening as 7b: m a t as 79: its circulation throughout the painting 82.mtl. in Egyptian art 123. But both arc true. see Interviews. It is a haptic. has a constant value 75. a n d shallow depth 119. Interviews. more near. 1980). T h e painting of the face will be both red and green. 94. their possible hieran h\ ~>6 athleticism 12 19. a n d the brain 54.injection 15. 14 apple u. Index l o t references in specific paintings see the Index of Paintings. in Bacon 3 1 . I. the unequal mixture. 6. Antonin 39.u i idem 1 6 . lie means thai there is not a relationship between one form and another bird umbrella). 56: the diagram is only a "possibility of fact. 100 i "these marks that have happened on the canvas evolved into these particular forms"). This was Bacon's formula.Votes the same time: a gradual series and a sudden whole. Set aisu art tnjatmtl abstraction abstract art xvii. a n d figuration 115. 2 3 . 5 1 . elc.
112. 5 9 . a n d Bacon H). 104. in El Greco 9. !_'<'. Christian. 18. versus Impressionism 35. manipulated 94 6. as pedestal 40. Gregory. on Michelangelo [96 it. analogical use of geometry 113. Strata in 106. 106: b o r d e r of 8 5 . 155. 10. Martin. 193 n. 52. 10. a n d presence 52. light against cliches 87. introduced into Egyptian art 135. on trowel painting 131 cliche 10 I I . 7. the " a b y s s " |()2. 107. use of mirror IB. . 32. 21 2 . transformation of 9 1 . Joseph. a n d music 54. and Beckett 40. coloring sensation sii. 58. 19. tactileoptical function of 151. " a p p a r i t i o n " versus accident 128. and sensation 34. 106. 139. getting out of. a n d hysteria 47. 27. deliucd by thresholds or levels not organs 15. lumlioii ol 17. of sensation 112 i LtsNJi. 188 n. in Impressionism 35. as virtual images 86 t liuauien a n d the tall 82 clinic 5 1 : aesthetic 51 close vision 122 3. Set alio chaos d i a g r a m . Set also representation Claude! 73. B9 90. The Lost Ones xiv. and the diagram 101 composition contrasting 37: versus organization 128 9 Conrad. a n d d i a g r a m 102.irn . becoming-imperceptible 27. and extension 78. defined for colorism 139. 4 2 . planarity of 107. 9 1 . "record the f a n " 35.is meat 22. D. two types! prepictorial and pictorial 93 4. determined by probabilities 93 Carroll. a n d chaos catastrophe 102. 1 7 9 n . as delimiter 33. 120. critique of G a u g u i n 141. 3 2 . I. immobile xiv. 8. Miggtr oj the "Jfatassns" 15 16. a n d optical space 131 2. 191 n. relations ol value versus relations of tonality 118. as llcsh a n d nerve 45. 10. in Pollock I (Mi. a n d three element! < t > painting 144 5. Aided Lunch 17. 185 n. exceeds the organism I 18. l a m i n a t e d works 106 bas-relief in Egyptian an 122 Bateson. relation to Cezanne 35 3(i. Georges. 119 breath: a n d die head 20. and immobility 4 1 . a* modulation 152. Luciano. 142. 135. and alcohol 47. laidwig van 73 beforehand 5 0 . its atheism 124. ilrfmed in terms ol a wave 17. anil power 44. 108: a n d cliches |0 I I . Paul 187 n. and Egyptian an 122. units of 114 color 27. organic versus geonietijt 126. 135. painting as 52: and the scream 45. vi. as nonorganic 45. as place 12. "imnscientilic a n d not yet aesthetic" 94. 140. 114: as digital not analogical 112 13. a n d convention 9 1 . 3 3 . llcsh descends from 8 1 : as tra|Mve a p p a r a t u s 23 Bonnefoi. 157. nonligurative 103 C h c n r t i e r . 119. 145 6: a n d the Figure 149 50. I l l . in Egyptian an 123. 108. 4 Button. 15. 139. and Ibrccs II. Georges-Louis Lcclerc. right versus left hemispheres 113 Bnicpie. deformation versus mauling 87. 16. a n d outlines 110 blurriness \ \ . in the painter's head 9 7 : and probabilii\ 96. 176n. li. 176 ii. a n d a t t e n d a n t s 71. William S. 152. in Egyptian art 122 COde 9 1 . a n d the spectrum 132: structure versus force 150. 101. as detective 63: on Duchamp 95. 102. and the easel 106 7. 128.s 13. a n d law of analogy 120. 179 n. on light 128. 190 II. 86. on Christian Bonnelbi 185 n. [86 n. 17. 123 4. its givens 87. in colorism 140. 2. 7. in Christian painting 124 5 Christian art 124 5. Maldiney on 179 n. as a definition of painting 154: and the d i a g r a m 138. as dc|x>pulator 32: drawn 120. &* also foreground ground Bacon. a n d catastrophe 118. 173 n. 30.Index spectators 13. as plexus x i \ . as a direct action on nervous system 52. 17. I 77 n. fight against 86 98. a n d coupled Figures 70. 124 5. 9 chiaroscuro 4. intensive reality o| 45 6. two modes of in colorism 142. 55. Francis: critique of abstraction 108. 133. J c a n . 189 n.84. 106. and the haptic 140. destroy* figurative a n d probabilistic Bcllosi. KM). 158. on internal molding 192 n. rules ol 139 40: a n d vividness 140 color-patchlsi laehefs) 9 9 . and Michelangelo 161. 13 brain 36. mentality ol color in 151 2. See ako techniques Baton's Bailly. a n d figuration 46. 3. Samuel 14. 18 Baffin. and schizophrenia 17: ••seen" beneath of organism 49: a n d lime 48 Bois. approaches to 47. vital 20 broken tone(s) xvi. 3. visible versus rlivilimu 77 automatic writing 127 background icvij in Byzantine art 127. technique of 30 44. 39. contrasted with probability 94. as t h e material ol the Figure 20. critiques ol 187 n. effort < l 15. 176 n.il representation 103 4. 111. I l l : in abstract art 104. 127 9.59. >HToming-aniiual 2 7 . two kinds m Baton 6 7 body: and athleticism 23. criticisms of 142: painting forces 57. relation lo Artaud 45. 4. puddle as 30: "save the contour" 110. Alban. a n d catastrophe 118. and spirit (7. 17. logic of the senses 42. and nervous system 36. a n d Velasquez 53 4.C h r i s t o p h 176 n. a n d light xviii. in Gothic art 129 body withoiil organs. a n d d i a g r a m 102. 13 Berg. 16 b a r b a r i a n art tee G o t h i c art B. 5. theory of 131 4 colorism 120. its scrambling 111. vanishing point of 17. a n d modulation xvi. his "system" 6 7. a n d sound 55. ami the smile 28 catastrophe 101: in Cezanne |()2. in the triptych* 13. 118. '». a n d frame 8 5 . rejected by Bacon as too dramati< 'Hi Burroughs. its "homely atmosphere" 137 t hoicc r a n d o m versus binary 104 Christ. 50. 7. Yves-Alain. in Cotlm art 130. of the llcsh 40. 8. "style" in 50. on outlines 186 n. in the system 30. his modulated use of color 118 19. 132. Cezanne. 182 n. 13 bones 22. 140 1. and Bacon's cleaning lady 95. and the history of I Minimi: I35IT. 110. as apparatus 15. discovered by Artaud 44. a n d presence 54 bet timing 35.. r >5. 19| n. 4. Mare 188 n. reality of 25 Beethoven. as an egg 4 5 . 15. 174 n. a n d line xiii. a n d rhythm 43 chance: in Bacon 93 4. William 25. Lawrence on 87 9. complementary KVii. G o e t h e a n d Newton on 133. 9 Beckett. optical 129. 110. Andre 175 n. 120. 3 . three periods of his uork 27 33. 14. on language ol dolphins 188 n. 2. a n d thickness 4. destroys p a i n t i n g 189 90. in Greek art 125: and Velasquez 5 3 . 191 n. a n d flesh xiv. as m e m b r a n e 1 2 . religious 10. and clarity 142. 4*1. 140. > escapes from itsell \ \ . H. 185 u. his "middle w a y " 111. a n d drugs 47. 134. tonal 29. 9 8 . 58. critique of expressionism 108 9. 179 n. 141. and autoscopia 49. 60. of meat 22. Bacon as colorist xv. and vibration 73 contraction 18. a n d the si ream 60 Blake. Lewis 177 n. 2 contour 6. I ! 9 . on a t t r a c t i o n 113. s h a p e versus color 12. in Van Gogh 193 n. 117. See also probability chaOS 101. 20 biilllighi. a n d geology 111. sonorous 54. 120. in expressionism 105. 132 3. compared wiih Bacon xv. as isolator 32. 132 4. Set aha afterward hy\tfir\i\ Index givens 100. ami a h s t r a d painting 89. disintegration in 128 9. 96. as decorator 47. lived body of phenomenology 198 199 .. hysterical reality til 48. a n d sadomasochism 47. 194 n. its gesturality 107. 117 18. on sensation 34 5. confinement of 14: deformation til 59. 14. 139. a n d lift* 62. 17. 189 n. as germ of r h y t h m 4**. in Klee 102. 191 n. 133. l. Byzantine a r l 6. and mirror 18: a n d movement 15. 17. See aho painting history of clarity: and blurrincs* 6. and mosaic 132 canvas *). destroyed by iree marks 94. 32.
2 7 . painting tbice-. 59. 29. I: " I n Praise ol H a n d s " 151 force s " t t>4. 136. 73: a n d active r h v t h m 80 I. 2 5 . colors of 2 3 . 194 n. a n d l o r e 56. I (Mi: of coupled Figures 73. 155. St. and llesh H). making \isible 56 64. pressure 57 pressure 16. 53: isolation 6 3 . and Figure 1 Hi. ". 1.nth 9. 179 n. as fact 12: and field 5 6. definition of 101. 63. 78.yolard 173 n. weight 4 2 . rejected by Bacon 90. 160. sleeping 22 3: a n d solitude 14. a n d analogy 115. cosmos 27. descent-flow 78 20 I. 4 d e p o p u l a t o r xiv. as < haos catastrophe 102. 195 n. a n d l. 102 3 l o c i l l o n ." 4. a n d geometry 112. 14. capturing 57. 78. Georges. a n d color 150 1. of Figure* 65 7:*. inertia 57. 156. opposed to figuration 3 I. of the work of art 123 Kiuneiiides 21 event " c r e a t e d " by newspapers 9 1 . primary versus secondary 37 8. Hi. in Bacon 142. shallow xvi-xvii. 133: given a non-optical power 102: not a lixed o r g a n 52: a n d painting 52 lace a n d animal traits 2 1 . dissipation 28. in Christian painting 125. contrasted with t h e lignral 97. 85.\n effect ol classical representation 46. sonorous 56. 9 8 . 105. 63. J o a c h i m 187 n. Gerard Foucault. a n d sensation 66. 6 Dyer. 6 9 . descends from hones xiv. a n d figuration 36. 143. I I . form-ground relationship destroyed shops 24 5. dissipation of xv. and Gothic line 46. 130. of m a n a n d animal 2 1 . in Egyptian art 123. 4 1 . Edgar. and descent 23. and accident 124. it-. tempered use of 111. 58. between field and Figure 5. ti games i hes% versus roulette 94: (heors modulator 120. and sensation 34 expressionism. 94 5. 159. folding 57: future 61 2: germinative 57. 65. multi-sensible 42. 59. 110. 83 4. xvii cuitain 53.Index coupling 63. Iaician Hi. 159. Gustavc 51. Sff aho background ground form: a n d abstraction 103 4: in Bacon's paintings 156. 108. 84: in Michelangelo 160. 84. coupling ot t i l . 23. faith a n d figuration 9. 100. 30. and the loriuh-ss |. 40. u<>t a psychological experience 102. 79. 58. on Fromanger 183 n. 70. Degas. 66. 50. 194 n. 107 8. dilation 18. strange 24 field s xi\. 140 I. Bacon's critique of 173 n. in Christian painting 10. as condition ot sensation 56. 138.m o d e m form 134: and pyramid 123. unavoidable but secondary 6 1 . combinatorial versus throw-bythrow types 94 5 G a s q u e t . determines organs 48. horizontal 7fi diastole 3 3 . excreting 16. modality ol color in 5.. contour as 32 depth 108. a n d bod) without organs >> 17 18. Elie 185 n. in Prousi 67. in the painter's head 97. crouching 38. a n d isolation I 2. and r h y t h m 7 1 . a n d isolation 21 2 • rutitixion s. movement a r o u n d Figure 12. operative 2. of cliches 87. 91 2. lid. relationships lieiweeu 3. 84: mechanical 46. 102: differentiated by painter 102: or "graph* 1 100. in tactile-optical space 156. Batons uie of in pope paintings 2*' ilraih of calves 25. 30 I. 195 n. in Proust 67. I MS. 78 Fried. a n d liguration 8. 83. H a l l o i n g 18. " r e c o r d the fact" 35. a n d place 15. 2 3. Henri 185 n. Figure as a pure force 3 1 . pit tonal 101. 10. a n d Figure 5 6. 186 n. scrambling effect 158 9. George lo 1 define movement 83. elongation 29 30. in past painting 8 I I . and broken tones 142. division 84. 84: of the Figure 12. optical function 127. exploration within the contour 4 1 . as a value o| the hand 154 5 monochromatic 18. a n d ground 4 . <> frame 8 5 . as a use ol geometry I 12. 65 73. 58. haptie function 127. as background 5. 58. 2. loss ot clarity in 143. jet of water xv. 126. 138. 36. 2 2 . 146. intensive not extensive 80 I. 195 n. of sensation 69. 121. a n d b a n d 107. 97 figuration xvii. 87 Figure s xiv. analogical not digital 113: in Bacon 110. 200 201 . Sffa/uf painting history of Kisemtein. 181 n 2: how to botch it 101. levels of 10. 23. 112. ol horror 60. a n d sensation 37: a n d tactile-optical space 155 6. 57 8. I G a u g u i n . 36. in G o t h i c Art 46. as diagram 63. a n d the body 130 I. a n d a t t e n d a n t s 13. coupling m e l o d i c 21 2. 6 2 . in modern painting 103 6. invisible xiii. of llesh xiv. of 5 4 . 8 2 : of I he body 119. emerges from d i a g r a m 73. as temporal III 12: d i a g r a m . in Gothic Art id: gvninasiics *• t ! >: inimohilm of 2: as improbable 9 4 . 9 Duchamp. 83. reality ot 8 1 . Fromanger. Eugene. Paul 55. law of 15fi. 119. 3 3 . 23. Marcel lo. Michel. 76 7. sticking to 3. transfiguration in By/antinc art 128: d c t b n n a t i o n in Christian painting 124. 160. in l. 40. primacy of in Greek art 125. " m a t t e r ol fact. 180 n. 26. in Byzantine art 128. at robatics ot xiv. 173 n. 143. II feeling ambivalence of 39: a r r a s of 36. . critiqued by Cezanne 111: a n d color xvi: and |>crcepiion 111. 1.. series of 36 cubism xiv. as colorisi 193 n. c o m m o n or u n i q u e 13. possibility of 101. 140. termed "motif l)\ (:<vanne 112: use of the term in P e i n e 116. self-poriraii 194 n. a n d d i a g r a m 121. 4 llesh. versus transformation 36. on 183 n. compression 29. 97: as the form related to sensation 34. derived horn image o| while canvas oi 91. a n d liic 62. and sensation 3(i: as static 19. and sensation 112 Francis. and dogs 26. vital 46 deformation 18. 8 2 : seated 38. a n d hysteria 53: a n d optimism 13. 7. and form 29. a n d Spectators 39. 83. 124: ni(»dality of color in 149 '»!. and hysteria 51: Sartre on 182 n. I. as contingent 45: emerges from the d i a g r a m 156: in Egyptian an 123. 65 73. 1. no feelings in Bacon 39. and sleeping figures 85 Egyptian an 6. 155. 28. tempest 3 1 : thermic 57. waiting 15. in Renaissance painting 58. 14. 161. a n d religion 8 11. contraction 18. Michael 152. 119. meat 22. 12. 6 3 . as spatiali/ing structure 12: temporality of 85. 56 6 1 . a n d the work of art 123 eternity 64.See also vibration resonance foreground. 58. invisible xiii. vomiting xiv. 84. of inertia s i \ . 16: Bacon on 95. 76. 32. 134. 143 figured 2. in Michelangelo 160 I: "unlocks areas of sensation" 102. xiii.32. 122 3. and representation 36: at rest 59. 185 n. 8 1 . dismantling Index 86. transformation of 59 Foucault. as pure presence 97. 143. of sleep xiv. a n d clinanieu 82. 97. a n d lime 57 t o n e s types ofi a t t r a c t i o n '»7. lit* 9. 84. 59: as sky 3 1 . 2 1 . 59. acts as a field 12. 4 1 . on taste 153. diabolical Kafka 6 1 . gravitation 57. and tension 81 F a u r e . spinal column in 22 Delacroix. a n d lime 48 Flaubert. and cube* lonn 123. and nervous system M High! line s.99 110. movement toward deformation 6 3 . in p l a r e 97. 38: a n d butcher easel 154: a b a n d o n m e n t ol 106. 31 forced movement: a n d r h y t h m 73. and < nance 95 Duthuit. of bodies 2 1 . 146 7 descent. 83. as body 15. 6 9 . a n d the Figure 8. . 53. 57: wind 3 1 . 3 1 . vital til fall I 1. and the scream 6 1 . of sunflowers 57. a n d the MIIMIIl 62 decoration: Bacon as decorator 17. pure 2. a n d geometr\ 16. 152. ill El Greco 9. coupled 3. as a property of color 142: and Figure 150: as 118. 55. 17 Steals* rhythm systole digital and code 101. Sergei 91 essence. vapor. iff abstract expressionism eye 42. versus head 20 (act 2. 154: in Egyptian art 122. and meat 24. 119. 136. expansion 78. in Giotto 10 Freud. 32.
175 n. 67. 7. a n d shadow 5. . libriaiinn o| 106. 8. a n d deformation 19. 143. H. 102 3. 10. 150. 157. 85. in n i n e t e e n t h . a n d color xiii. I'ornagraphia HI. 29 30. a n d the diabolical forces of the future 6 1 . p u r e 103. 110: in J a p a n e s e art 89 gray: 143: two types of optical versus h a p t i c 133. 1 hands a n d eye 107. 25. 6. in Christian p a i n t i n g 124 G o e t h e . I. a n d cliches 86. 149. the " g r a y light 2 7 . period in Bacon's work 66. as time 139. 3 1 . Michel 6. 125. in Greek art 126. " a p r e s . two wavs "I avoiding 5 3 . 38. in Cezanne 142. function 202 203 . on Cezanne 87 ft. 6 5 . 148. as originally Egyptian 122. of flight 54. 10. 3 0 . Franz 13 14. 185 n. versus schizophrenia 5 5 .c e n t u r y h a n d b o o k s 4 9 : of p a i n t i n g 5 2 . 4 0 . 32. 9 Gomhrowii z. removed by the act of painting 100. 23. Maldine> on 185 n. and spinal column 23: and swimmer 14 Kandinsky. Kl 9.F r a n c o i s 173 n. thresholds of 44 5. 8 3 Louis. xiv. 146 Janvier. J . his photogiaphii rifle 92 marks: as accidental 94 of anunaht-. See alio figuration n a r r a t i o n image si: cinematic 87. 8. 181 n. 119. defined as the passage from one sensation to a n o t h e r 39 Cezanne's apple 35 Lc Bot. "rendering visible" 56. a n d scandal 13.'<>' a n d suffering 23. prepiclorial 92. 101. 2. 190 n. as a coupling of sensations t>7. 63. 5. 32. 108. 102 3. a m p h i t h e a t e r 13 14. in abstract an 103. and sensation 45. See also undecidability instinct 34: Bacon's 38. 29 30. 189 n. 182 140. in Egyptian an 123. 3. . 1 Maldiney. 93. 5. 7 3 . del>oiied 25. and image 2. I. 119. 2. 14. trapeze a p p a r a t u s 15. 100. a n d the b o d y 48: a n d Flaubert 51. lour values of 154 5 baptii 5: in Ma* on 138. Set aho background foreground G u a t t a r i .horrilii »2: imprisoned by the organism 4 5 . a n d newspapers 9 1 . I l.Index geometry III 13. 46. 192 n. Ktieniie-Jules. 32. free 5. 1 Messaien. 49. and aesthetics 17H n. perspective in painting history of 125. 5 G r a b a r . and death ti2. 180 u. 3 2 : beds I. 179 n. essential versus operative 16. 149. figural presentation 75 horror xiii. a n d bod\ without organs 11 ">.91). 16. 137. determined by sensation 39: versus reding 39. created through juxtaposition of colors 133. manual 101. 53: rail 1. Clement.citis. the "gray p o i n t " in Klee 102 Greco. round area I. Bacon hystericizes Velasquez 53 54: beforehand a n d afterwards 98. in Gothic art 130. 155. a n d body without organs 17 meat 22. new relation to horizon [06. 105. See nl\o psychiatry illustration 2 3. 25 Greek art 125 7. and Index intensity 146. Set aho tactile manual space 130. 14. a n d a u t o m a t i c writing 127. the simulacrum 91 Lyotard.c o u p " 99 hysteria 44 55. " c r e a t e d " by the p h o t o g r a p h 9 1 . 191 ii. " s t u b b o r n " 111. 161. 3 1 . gcomctru Egyptian) 129: Gothic 46. a n d of color 58. in G a u g u i n 143. 133. new relation to g r o u n d 106 horizontal 118. 139. 66. 84. a n d Beckett 62. a n d the smile 2 8 . 72: zero as principle of 81 Ireland 2 3 . 6 malerisih 29. nomadic 105. c u b e I. 9. bis existence permits everything 10. versus optical space 131 M a t e s . 52. I H e r b i n . in m o d e r n art 103. vital 46 given*: figurative 87. 10.See also periods Malraux. 182 n. 105. in past painting 9 10. line 46. stain technique 105 Lucretius: a n d photography 9 1 . 182 n. a n d color xviii. 50. northern 129. H I . impressions in body not air 35 iudctcrmination 29: objective 137 indiscci nihility / o n e of: 21 3. 5. as a break with figuration 3. Cezanne a n d Bacon Compared 35. 189 n. 30. parallelepiped I. 195 n 2: meal 25 Hegel. doctored 9 1 . 8. 15. Morris 185 n. 14. I. 176 n. irrational 8 3 . 4 life 138. 3 2 . IH2 n. 6 . readym a d e 87 M c r l c a u . a n d the scream 3 8 . 2 Gothic: art 46. Wassily 104. a n d psychiatry 49. rendered visible 63 catastrophe loo I. Auguste 185 n. 120. m a n u a l aggregates 130. ami Turner 105. color theory 133. 99. M a r . 191 n. 79. axes of 45. 15 grass: in Bacon xv. Sttaia point" 102 landscape 2 4 5. and problems ablation adjunction projection intersection 46. 18 K a n t . cleared away by the d i a g r a m 100. u n d o n e by free marks 94. J o h a n n Wolfgang von. 84. 21. black 84. in Bacon 4 5. a n d the d i a g r a m 9 9 . flat 129. a n d sleeping ligures 79. 147. 12 hysteresis delay i 49 50. 95. 186 n. 158. |0H. in Egyptian art 122. 195 n. 7 Kalka. virtual 86 impressionism xvu B a c o n s i c i n q u e of 112. 46. K. I). 136 8. armchairs 1 2. vision 1 3 5 . 9 8 . white 84 hue %•: abstract 105. gradients of 45. 2. on Greenbcrg. 185 n. and coupling 21 2. probabilistic 93 4. a n d attendant r h y t h m 75. figural 158. 25 memory. as a definition of painting 154. 17. 15. that are " m o r e than lines" 106.i. 2. 3. isolation techniques of. defined by Riegl 195 II. 180 n. OUvici xvii xviii. 195 n. Lawrence 18H n. 161. vectors 45. and the decomposition a n d reroui|>osiiion n. nonorganic Hi. 9 . 108. 26. 66. . in colorism 140. becomes intense 52. 8. Henri 178 n. anil ihr Irani!' 1 12. 42. a n d immobility 4 1 . 4: circles 4. h c i d s 58. oval 32. 4. 183 n. of sensation xii. washbasin 15 6. 182 n. a n d Beckett 62. Peguy on K a n t i a n morality 103 Klee. Maurice 178 n. a n d principle of intensity 8 1 . 129. 101. ring 6. 4. in Beckett a n d Baton 4 l l isolation 4. in M o n d r i a n 103 language: analogical versus digital 113. a n d mouth 26. 1 6 1 . and abstraction 34. 129 31. bar I. WltOkl. I'Vlix 176 u. Set also painting history of C o w i n g . Paul 182 n. involuntary Proust 66 67. as correlate of the Figure 1. 2: space 143. I m m a n u c l 8 1 . 6. a n d S a r t r e 5 1 .l ' o u t y . 187 n. 1. 1 5 2 . ami Gothic art 46. 1 2 . I 2. nonorganic 129. as a value Of t h e hand 155. 194 n. Ludovic 179 n. analogical use of 113: in C e z a n n e 111. geologic 111 logic 6 5 . 145. and death masks 25. 5. Cezanne's critique "I :i5. involuntary 5. translation of t e r m 177 n. 8 3 . I7H n. a n d ihr " d i g i t a l " 112. J e a n . 96. 6 0 . A n d r e 191 n. 59. 109. sofa 4. 1)0. without contour 109 10. in Bacon 181 n. and m a g n i t u d e 81 82. a n d Impressionism 35. 18. HI. three ways of becoming I OH. 12. 189 n. a n d presence 50. 154. visual 95 God. of the world 61 H u y s m a n s . and television 87. and crucifixions 24: a n d t o n e t>2: a n d head 25. versus face 20. and photography 90. as culmination of body 20. Antoinc 182 n. and shallow depth 188 n 9 ground 5. 14 Golea. interpretation oi abstract expressionism 107. 196 n.ui<l pit} 23: and \M>\K . 8. I K). plastic alphabet 104 horizon: a n d ground I0H. in Egyptian art 123: and form 1. distinguished the planes 125. Andre 8 m a n n e r i s m a n d Michelangelo 161 m a n u a l : as a value of the h a n d 155. uonrepresentative 94 masochism. optical 101. a n d bones 22. 7. liberation of 131 2: p u r e 64. 50. m a n u a l 94. a n d color 22 3. a n d color 113: a n d lines 113 Lawrence.
its "in'imac V or "lnitncly a t m o s p h e r e " 134. m Bacon i!t. preparatory-work 99. . history of \ii. a n d the Figure xvii.md Immobility xiv. p u r e 54. 186 n. 136. 144. reigns over vision II: x-rays 90 Picasso. of color xvi. WoUgang Ajnadeus. from Figure to Geld xv. m o d e r n 125. stomach 50. optimism 52. and meat 26. as Noland. Bacon's use of 6. 1 2 . 101. (J. " r h y t h m i c c h a r a c t e r s " xviii. replaced by the conjunction of" planes 118 pessimism 52: in Bacon 43. 110. dismantled 129. 118. 148. a n d sensation lit I: of translation 75. intensive | 9 . as a p p a r a t u s 15. figurative 69. 83. in Byzantine art 127 8. 13. 92. in Van Gogh a n d G a u g u i n 141. 132. 139 mouth s : as abyss 61. Kenneth 185 n. and modern painting 8. J a p a n e s e 141. See aha representation organism: a n d determinate organs 47. in Greek art 125. period 30 I. descending-rising 77 8. and aniu 47 8. as i In Ins 117. 20. 110. and narration 87. t e m p o r a r y 48. series of 36: |>o|)c series rejected by Bacon 90. displaced 47. It Mortiz. 125. 4 1 . in tactile-optical world 136 Plato 87 Pollock. 1 1 4 . Vital $4. 155: in Western 124 Panofsky. 20. 50. nervous • > 1 _ See atw pessimism made 87. u n d o n e by fiee marks 94. 99 100. and color 133. 15. 90. inplace I I . 54 5. in tactile-optical space 134. Charles on K a n t i a n morality I0!i P e i n e . 15. 12. as drTormcr 32. artery 26. a n d event 15. integrates its own c a t a s t r o p h e 102 3. a n d haptic sense 140. 175 n. rejection of easel Hi. a n d Bcing-in-lhe-W'orld 34. 2. 15. a n d vital emotion 45 \ r w i n a n . 195 n. 88. 54 5. different function in C e z a n n e and Van Gogh 141. 1. I. " c r e a t e s " a person or landscape 9 1 : medical plates 90. Charles. theory of the sign 188 n. an analogical language 113. 15. 5 perception s : of the field 148: reach- contour" 105. and p h o t o g r a p h y 90. Krwin 174 n. lineman* 15. on the three types of r h y t h m 72. 51 paint: power of 38 9. 185 n. search lor 108 newspapers 53. washbasin as In plain s . 43 Nazism 38. in expressionism 107. 186 n.tiulc: Cezanne's critique ol 187 n. compared with Michaux 186 n. 17 Michelangelo 160. 78 nervous system 35. in Simondon 192 n. Set aho modulation M o n d r i a n . in Van Gogh and Gauguin III periods of Bacon's work 27 33. obtained through difference* of value 140. of tight 133. 44 5. Bacon's use a n d rejection of 9. a n d the lived Mo/art. I'ofie Iniweent X Velasquez • 53 4. 68. 32. 68. I I . 108. r a n d o m spurts of 23: thrown 99 100: violence of 39 painting: act of 9 5 . Sanders: on the diagram I 16. 97. 30. . diastolic -systolic 78. as architectonic 108. 136 8. 100. and painting 108 organization: versus composition 128 9 origin s : anus 50. 8 3 . a n d relations between colors 145. transitory* 48. determined by lories 48. 120. in Creek art 125. Christian 9. a n d tind i a g r a m 138: in Egyptian art 123: in Greek art 125. 7 0 . as cliches 87. 10. ami tactile ground l0t>: freed from lactility 127. 13. 192 n. a n d catastrophe 118. Richard 188 n. Cezanne's term for " d i a g r a m " 112. 140. in Kalka 4 1 . 18. in Cezanne 35. as the law of analogy 118. versus similitude 1 1 " . 70. screaming 5 3 . Pablo U9 Pinbas. 90 Newton. 12. J e a n . a n d mamial space 130 Millet.k 186 n. Requiem 55 music: a n d B a c o n s paintings 79. 6 Paris. 175 n. aesthetic status 9 1 . and the body 18. temporal 148. a n d hysteria 51 2. 7. three elements of (in Bacon I 6. a n d sensation 34 n a t u r e 108. a n d relations of tonality in color 133 More. Muybridgc's 6 9 . of heads 20: Byzantine art 129. Gothit 129 131. 6 5 .". 2(). 92. 6*2 modulation a n d colorism 152. destroyed b\ catastrophe 101. 176 n.F r a n c o i s 57 mirror 27. 6. 6 1 . 62. 13. Egyptian 122 3. 122 34.\\\t\ figuration 37. a n d art 178 n. 142. Bacon's views on 68. 120. organization of 47. aspiration to 134. and sleeping figures 77 |Vi>u\. 145. versus artifice in Bacon 35. 5 . mouth as 26. O r i e n t a l 125: primitive 111: seventeenth-century 128 0. " c r e a t e " events 9 1 . $et also mold nmld 134. a n d body Without organs 45. decomposition ol in Out d a m p 10. iii Bacon 18. 72 Michaux. Set also self-portrait(s) presence * : and analogy 114. a n d resemblance 115. dangers of 136: as an ellect 136: a n d newspapers 87. 102. avoids the brain 36. and sensation 31. 6 7 . as spasm 15.2 3 . 124 5. Piet 103. as equally probable 93. c o m p a r e d with music 5 1 . 5 motif 54. a n d representation 8 9. and the "line without painting 108. on icons: 116: on similitude I 16. elongated l > the > d i a g r a m 4 2 . compared iviih Polio. 136. nakedclothed 78 9 optical space 101. 108. 7. Karl Philipp 24 5. a n d color 52: a n d sensation 34: a n d violence 39. virtual 19 misrrabili\inr 45. polyvalent 48. dismantling of 44 5. Eadwcard 10. and representation 52 204 205 . ' ' r e n d e r i n g " movement in painting 58. disembodies the body 54: a n d the ear 55. defined by line a n d color 52. 154. 119. nascent fourth modern 142. Bacon's use ol his photographs '") 1: comparer! with laseuistein 91 narration xviii. versus modulation 134. plays role of a t t e n d a n t in Bacon 13. 192 n. Greek 125 7. Byzantine 127 9. 14 body 44 p h o t o g r a p h s 1 p h o t o g r a p h y 7 1 . violent 46 index organic representation 126. and mural law ol triptych* 83. Jackson 106. painters know what they w a n t to do but not how to get there 96: a n d photography 9. rctrogradation of active rhythm 75. cerebral 6 1 . 117. J e a n 194 n. 68. 47 8. 152: gives us eyes all over 52. "all o v e r " d r i p paintings I (Mi. 113. and the organism 44 5. Marcel 180 n. 185 n. photo-l>ooths 90. 134. provisional 17. 28. 177 n. Baton'* use (if 18 19. 51 2. car 55. ti9. See also figuration illustration naturalism: formula or 39. 8 4 . 185 n. Isaac on color 133. Barnelt \ v i .Index Chumochiumit xvii.. a n d levels of sensation 41 2. 14 northern line. ol the body 52. reduces sensation to a single level 9 1 . H e n r i . 2. series ol 16 movement i : from Geld to Figure xv. a n d force 56 7: relation 10 p a i n t i n g 5 1 . in Baton's paintings fill. 185 n 14. prepic torial Venus pictorial activities 96: and sensation 34 43 painting. See also optimism phenomenology 34 5. as coexistent !i0. three dimensions of plane color l»nl\ 118. computer generated 114. a n d the body 16. 149 pers|>eetive 108. 124. a n d r h y t h m 42: and t h e s c r e a m 60 mutilation s \iii. 160. versus m a n u a l space 131. 10 I I . 3 passu v rhythm xviii. a d d or subtract r h y t h m i c value 79 M u y b r i d g c . versus molding 134. 6 1 . 90. in Beckett 41: A\U\ IMKIV 15. screams before the invisible 58 portrait s 19. indeterminate 47. 148. derived from forces 83: in Gothic line 130. 14 15. 108. see Gothic line oppositions r h y t h m i c augmentationdiminution 79. 6 pity xiv: and meat 23 plat c s 2. Monet. 90 2. 17 pope s 28. imprisons lite 45. D u t c h 125. 120. 32. malemth period 6 6 . as organ 26. 196 n.
optical organization of 101. 6 relation i : in color 132 3. and thickness 29 Sollier. 6 6 .i pn inrial iriven ( t | S>. optical 125. 3 8 . I. 160: coloring xii. 5. "shifting sequences 36 77 Set'usier. 75. 189 n. a n d music 42. C l a u d e 182 n. claritv a n d d u r a t i o n of 110. I I " . a n d Figure 34: linds its condition in force 56. distances of 85. and light 128. three elements of Figure contour field 12. and awakening 79. 182 n. 71. in Egyptian art 123. 128. a n d invisible l i m e s 60. 120.Sttatso diastole r h y t h m photography 8 9. 14 Russell. as ligural 5. 13. confused (Cezanne UK). as counterpoint 73. 82 sense organs 41 2. 36 7. also chance Index painting 9. 34 4 3 . 73. a n d Gothic line 46. a n d sensation 36.md 2. 48. and an aesthetic clinic 54.m«l the visual 103 I Stt also manual 206 207 . 180 u.SVe also field is) surface. circulation in triptych* 77. and phenomenology 34 5. as characters xviii. a n d deformation 36. 72. 185 n. 6 9 . and the real 15: and sensation xiii. of light and shadow 128. 13 S a h a r a 27. modular versus integral 116 system: Bat em's l» 7. d i a g r a m as germ of 102. boredom of its conveyance 36. 152: systole 33. nonfigurative 158. J o h n 66 7. Gilbert: on modulation 192 n. I. 12. Set also portrait s> sensation: " I H . translation of 184 u. o r g a n " 15. 10. a n d feeling 39. See al\<> forced movement vibration rhythm 33. 179 n. 78. and resemblance 114. 195 n. classical 103 4.!• . 190 n. 73. " p a i n t the sensation" 66. 79. 5. 72: and painting 34 43. a n d series 36. 7 0 . 25. a n d spastic* 50. syringe as 17 18 Proust. a n d hysteria 49 50. 125. pathic moment of 42. and p a i n t i n g 6 leif-portrait(f): in Bacon 36. Ibrcc ol >9. a n d unity of the senses 14: distribution in triptychs 74 85. and motifs 54. A u g u i t e 123 Rosenberg. passive xviii. aesthetic theorv of 94 shadow s 1. 6 5 . 178 n. 5 0 I. Alois 122. m a n u a l 127. producer or produced 115. Harold 185 n. 7. sidewalk as 6. 20 sleep ing 69. a n d involuntary optical 126 spectacle 62. a n d sensation 33. a n d Lewis Carroll 28. a n d flattened Figures \ i \ . 108 series: Bacon's use of 36: closed 37. 189 n. and ambivalence 39. Claudel on 182 n. 72: engendered by light 84 Riegl. as much presence as the INKK 16. 26. 58. a n d painting 35 Ipftinx: and Bacon 124. in expressionism H*7: . sensible 115 Id scream xiii. 17. 8. motor hy|)othesis of 40. 30. 1: has only an intensive reality 45: levels or orders of 10. ( h . See also hysteria psychoanalysis 5 1 . 30 surrealism 97 Sylvester. 4. 4. 1. I: analysis of 59 60. complexity of 79 80. a n d the fall 80 8 1 . 8. of wailing or effort 13 s p e c t a t o r s ! 70 I. 8 4 . lound in the IXKI\ not in light 35. 72: logic of xii. 32. See aho figuration illustration narration Stravinsky. 1 tactile 5. 2. a n d images 2. 3. J e a n Paul 180 n. and nervous system 39. 5. a n d painting 57 Soil tine C h a i m 22 3. a n d sentiment 8 11 R e m b r a n d t . / o n e of 100 S a m u e l . produced through turn resembling m e a n s 98. dice 94. material 6 . Marcel 66 8. 80. attendant 71. smile 6 3 . I: photographs reduce sensation to a single level 9 1 . 174 n. Robert. a n d spontaneity 3 1 : versus the spectacle 6 1 . and music 54. 120. 112. in Christian 6. series in Bacon 36 7. a n d photography 115. 9. 1 It). 184 n. and hysteria 79: a n d the rhvtlunfunctton 76 7. "completely dillereui relations" 157. 8 3 . discovered in the < a t a s t n i p h e 105. 37. connections 128. in triptychs 6 3 . 30. in Hegel 178 n. 7. as element of system 32: and Figure 20: a n d forces 14. Igor 73 siroke si lrait(\) a n d the d i a g r a m 101: in Gothic art 130. use of light 8 1 . Bacon on 178 n. 36. "existential" c o m m u n i c a t i o n of 42: hearing 42. 5. a n d violence 82. 182 n. Sjniondon. versus sensation 6 1 . 189 n. a n d philosophy 67 psychiatry. Paul: a n d abstraction 112 13. 182 Flaubert 51 schizophrenia: a n d body without 17. on the basic " u n i t s " of a code 112 13 Set'vieii. 80. 38 9. 5. 90. Paul 179 n. W. van Rijn 22. three types of xviii. 10 Si h u i i i a n n . 77. of proximiiy 146. m a x i m u m 96.26. 176 n. 42. intelligible 1.S I " 10. 183 n. 107. 112: . 73. 193 n. 2. in Pcircc 116. 177 n. object of a possible si ieiu c 91. tactile- resonance 65. 4. and presence 51. and hysteria 55 Schmidt. tactile spa<e. anesthetics 19 50. smell 42: touch 42 separation: in light a n d color 84. 5 sound. as an attendant rhwiini 75. in R e m b r a n d t 7 I . 4. as spasmodic 4 5 . Puis 183 n. 75. ! 76 n. 44. a n d psychosis 19. 75. through color 118 religion 24 5. 77. and Bacon 43. a n d body without organs It 55. 155. and rhythmic characters 84. as coexistence of movements 33. ami cliches 96. of self[Hirtraiis 58. I. a n d memory 67.. as melodic 73. versus the sensational 34. 4 5 . a n d analogy 157. See alio classical representation organh representation resemblance 9 1 . of man and beast 25. genre paintings 73. a n d Serusier 187 n. of the Ixxly 47. on organs filters l Hi 17. 65. 121. 14 Read. and coloi 55. in Greek art 126: haptic 143. and C e z a n n e 88. 45. 62: add < r mbtraci > rhythmic value 79. a n d scream 28. Herbert 177 n. 9 n.52 3. 4 2 . 39 symbols. 181 n. 181) n. 127. R O I K T I 51 prostheses xiii. . struggle with 62. as a value of the h a n d 155: definition of term 174 n. 45: a n d r h y t h m 42. 120. a n d chaos 44. coupling of 65 73. elimination of 13. as matter a n d material 106. symbolism xvii Synthesizers: a n d the analogical'digital distinction 116. in R e m b r a n d t 25. a n d heads 25. animal 20. real r a t h e r t h a n representative xiii. pity for the J e w 23 space: dosed 6: as color 139. relief 120. 195 n. 64: a n d union xix. sWIportraits 36. 00 a single canvas 70. equal a n d unequal 93. a n d an aesthetic clinic 54. 2. 82. 130. a n d head 20. 126. 181 n. elimination ->\ 13 14: a n d feeling 39. a n d painting 8 9. 5 7 . 1. a n d the m a n u a l line 131. two types of memory 66 8. polygon of 31. S a r t r e . 30. and mouth 27. 160) in past painting 9. active xviii. as hysterical 2 8 . 184) u. 181 n. logic of C e z a n n e ] 42: r h y t h m i c u n i t y of 4 2 . in Egyptian art 122: in expressionism 106. 114. I l l 5. David 29.\ storytelling 3 . a n d the Figure 97. 174 u. a n d horror 38. 2 Rodin. exceeds the organism 45. 189 n. definition of 2. 3. 181 n. 7. autoscopia 49. 176 n. and pojx. on Man and Dog 70 R v m a n . a n d sand 31 spirituality: a n d abstract art 103 4. and the o r g a n i c 46 Sieudahl 55 still lifes: in Cezanne 142: Cezanne and Bacon compared 35. non logical 6 5 . COpy-modcl relation inverted in 86. 82. Ii. a n d meat 42. "unlocking areas of sensation" 102: violent e of xvii. 178 n. Gcorg 185 n. 15. still life 73 repetition 108 representation 2. and values 79 rhythmic characters: in Mcssaicn xviii. 71 2. becomes Figure 71: a n d hearing 42. 38. and smile 28 sculpture: Bacon's relation to 123 4. 191 n. on Bacon's taste 153. 5M also line structure 30. ami form 36. 32.Index probability probabilities 93 !: contrasted with chance 94. 4. series of in Bacon 37 Uukt. 7 1 . 80 2.c o a g u l a t e d " 37. 125. and fibers 106. of crucifixions 90: of heads 58. 33. 159. . of sensations 68. 12. 124. hyperesthetics 49 50.
idabihty 2 1 .. 8. paintbrush 106. versus optical space 131 Talking Heads 158. Vincent 4. movement 43. 158. nervous 45. S$e tU$9 close vision Index Wolfflin. a n d Ixxly without organs 11 '>. two meanings of 39.: and " e y e " o f hurricane 3 1 . a n d painting 39. a n d variation 48. 143. 84. I. experienced in a fall 8 1 . a n d r h y t h m 79 Van (iogh. virtual 19 nude. rendered visible 63 T i n t o r e t t o . 9 .indi:. role of a t t e n d a n t s in 13. of proximity xvi. UK <>l color in 147. anil the d i a g r a m 101. a n d contour 73.ui. 2 9 . distributive 85. 190 n. 109. 59. bright 141. 11*4. missing 50. nonorganic !29and r h y t h m 42: volume: in Cezanne 113. 192 n. definition of term I 73 n. n a t u r e of 72: all paintings eom|x>scd like 85. Paul 36 value i). It. mobility within 77. throwing paint 99 100. 68: in M u y b r i d g c 69 / o n e s 58. 129 30 wrest lei v 62. scrubbing 5. a n d self 42 Worringer. sense of 42 Tali. distribution of r h y t h m in xviii. 110. 25. 179 n. (iioigjo 190 ii. 't'i. empirical siiiily ol 7 \ 85. w i p c d . 30. 6 3 . 15. 129. J a c o p o 10 tonality toners) 4. 46. lacking in abstract painting 109 time 148. 194 n. r a n d o m spurts of paint 23. foreign as in a u t o m a t i c writing 127. and mouochromatism 85. 190 n. phenomenological 42. 120: unlimited 32. 99. analogues of washbasins 17. 159: scrubbed xv. 82 208 209 . extraction 2. Wilhclm 46. stretching 18. 190 n. in r h y t h m 77. 109. a n d rhythm 12: c o l l a t e of visual coordinates 102. use of sponges 106. produce a c a t a s t r o p h e 100. 63. an " a r b i t r a r y colorist" 141. 91 2.errmbihiy union and separation xix. 10. 100. J a c q u e s 175 n. Bacon's use of 17. 141. 2. a n d color xvi. decreasing passive r h y t h m 7 1 . 106. a n d color 132. nonorganic life 46.o l T 3 l vital vitality 34. in v e r t i c a l l y 77. 143. of intensity or saturation 146. rubbing 2 1 . 19. a n d the d i a g r a m 99. of variable a m p l i t u d e 47 will: . 82. transformation 118. justified religiously 10. broken 140. a n d Ixtdy without organs 48. 193 n. tension 32. use ol syringe 17 18. 193 n. p u r e 140. 176 n. See ah. a n d abstraction 103. Meimich 177 n. 2. of intensity 4 5 . a n d transfiguration 128 triptych s xvii. Bacon's use of 72. " t h e will to lose the will" 92 Wittgenstein. wiping 5 8 . limitative 85 Valery. 7. m a n u a l 9 7 . a n d perception M l : o n t h e portrait 195 n. 68. I I . UK). 2 1 . 108. 137: steamship in 3 1 . See alio vision: and photography I I . double 71. 82 3. increasing [active r h y t h m . \V. of texture 48. a> a means ol breaking with easel 108. 193 n. 6 la-ae: good laslc I ">2. temporal 48. I'M) n. 49. variation 77. use of rags 5. brushing 5. 74 84. 108. of color 48. 46. Diego 53. form of 148. 185 n. a n d a t t e n d a n t s 13. 196 n. 108. effects of anticipation precipitation!' 49. 69. \|i< harl on ! )2. 175 n. 154. in expressionism 106 war 38. II Vclasipic/. sweeping 58. a n d relations of tonality in color 133. stroll ol 50 Violence xiii. scrambled 157. 173 n. Roulin postman painting 141 variation si 4. a n d figuration 155 6. 193 n. the Gothic line 108. 100. his d i a g r a m 102. striping 29. and I he mold 136. of indisccrnihility 21 3. 100. 109. relationship between panels 3. 7 1 . of animality 2 1 . as Aeon 85. ol the field 146.Index tactile-optical spare 126. a n d chromatism 48. a n d color 132. 105. 59. as series of simultaneity 37 T u r n e r . 2 1 . 85. versus deformation 36. 90 vertical 118 20: a n d active and passive r h y t h m 75. 100. a n d F i g u r e 4 8 . a n d force 57. a n d color 143. 106. and color 132. 156.IIKI Catastrophe 100 1. See also forced movement resonance vigilambulist 49. added or subtracted 79. m a x i m u m found in immobile Figures 38. 190 n. a n d "possibilities of fact" 101 horizontal vibration 65 6. allotropic 45. in the triptychs 6 3 . skett lies 99: use ol stii ks 106. 6 3 . a n d the infinite 194 n. 8. 105. 12. of sensation xiii. 4: a n d colorism 140. a n d forces 57. I. spiritual 16. a n d eternity 6 3 .IWN ol 82 *!. screaming 32. 40. I I . power of 110. 137. use of pastels 3 1 . 7. 157. ^signifying 5. a n d face 42. 99. Bacon's versus C e z a n n e I 120. irrational 109. and optical space 132 world: clewed 32. violence of 39 wave 19. 106.61. c h a n g i n g 63. 6. 4. 9 techniques Bacon's: use ol'brooms 5. and the d i a g r a m I I I 12. 7. J . Ludwig 196 n. M . 64. 9. 38. 5. 143. 145. 194 n. late watercolors 105 umbrella 32. sensation versus representation xvii. 191 n. I. Set aha separation unity. blurry xv. 3. 4 trail s 144. 66. 143. 9 9 . nonligurative 5. 13. two modes of 48. 50. 65 73. 6. 186 n. 72: allotropic 71. 6 1 . of light a n d color 84. 161. of wave 45 Vas. 6. Pope Innotem X 53 4. and emotion 15: geometry 16. 63.
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