I've not been to the Bacon yet and definitely intend to go. Possibly my favourite painter of all time, though it's a close tie with Cézanne. I'm very bad at keeping track of art exhibitions but mustn't miss this one.

I'm going to Bacon on Sunday. I had to choose between the two,* which was hard, but went with Bacon because I know much less of his work. What makes him your favourite, tinners?

* Although I may yet sneak off to Rothko later in the year

Gosh! I didn't know about that concert. My own social secretary however tells me that I shall be in Stockholm acting as external examiner for a PhD candidate on that day. Or at least that's what I assume the diary entry "Roast Swede" is supposed to mean.

Bacon always makes me slightly uncomfortable for pretty much the reason you describe - I could never be so ruthless - but there is something quite compelling about his stuff.   It's a bit like staring at a car accident.

The funny thing about seeing the work exhibited is Bacon's preference that all the canvases, however big, should be displayed behind glass. This is something I tend to forget about, since like everyone else I see the work so often in reproduction, but I look forward to being reminded of the real effect when I get to the Tate. Incidentally I haven't yet decided when that should be, though looking at my current schedule I think it will have to be after 20 October, and if anyone from this board fancies a joint visit I'd be interested in that idea.

Richard's first sentence mirrors pretty much my own feelings - certainly the work seems like a powerful argument for the relevance of figurative art. I wouldn't say there are no figurative painters at all from the mid-20th century who interest me, but there seems to be something particularly forceful in the way Bacon does it, which makes the paintings seem in one way like an argument that this is the appropriate subject-matter/style for an artist in Bacon's situation (I'm not sure how specific I'd like to be about what that 'situation' might be, though). I don't think this can be unconnected to his curious relationship to the medium of photography, and if he hadn't himself spent time obfuscating the fact of that relationship then there might have been more critical verbiage expended on developing some insight into the nature or rather the aesthetic effect of it.

I was thinking just last night as it happens about those funny orange or red floors that a lot of Bacon's (later?) paintings have, as if the gallows for an execution had been set up in the middle of a school basketball court or something. They usually seem distracting and a bit 'wrong', compared to the integration of the whole field of the canvas in something like the screaming popes, and I wonder if I'll ever get used to them. I can't decide whether their oddness enhances or detracts from the effect.

 

 

The Bacon is truly bizarre - have read snippets about his life and he appears quite a bohemian characteur -does anybody know if there is a biography about him as would be worth reading im sure

I like the Rothko too but im not sure why - when i look at those colours what should i be looking for - i enjoy looking at the colours but feel theres more to it than that - i read in a magazine article recently that his later work had darker colours and reflected his depressed state which ended in his suicide - interesting but sad at the same time!

Seconded on both counts. That is in strongly recommending the Sylvester Interviews with Francis Bacon. And in not having read the Peppiatt book. There's apparently also lots about the Bohemian/Soho life in Daniel Farson's The Gilded Gutter Life of Francis Bacon but I haven't read that one either .