Francis Bacon - Closer

Francis Bacon - Closer

Through close-up details and rigorous visual analysis, Francis Bacon: Closer invites audiences to see Bacon's paintings for what they really are.

What do we perceive when encountering Francis Bacon's paintings? Bacon himself resolutely refused to analyse his own paintings, brushing off intrigue by saying he didn't know what half of them meant. Our mistake as his audience was taking him at his word. 

To this day, Bacon's subject matter tends to be collapsed into hunks of distorted flesh, vignettes from his not-so-private life, and the so-called 'screaming' popes that have become his signature image. Satisfied by the artist's vocal disdain for paintings in which "the story talks louder than the paint", curiously few critics have attempted to circumvent his disingenuousness, landing on theoretical generalisations or biographical analogies rather than looking to the paintings themselves.

Francis Bacon: Closer challenges audiences to look again. Reconsidering the manifold aspects of Bacon's imagery that have heretofore been overlooked, the book strips away decades of myths and misperceptions to focus on what Bacon actually painted. Sensory rather than theoretical in its approach, Closer prioritises the eye over the intellect -echoing Bacon's belief that his paintings should be experienced, not explained. Through close visual analysis, it reveals the extraordinary breadth of expression in his work and, for the first time, crucial facets of his intentions and modus operandi.

The book opens with a broad analysis of what close attention to Bacon's details can reveal, before examining five key paintings whose components embody far more than their nominal subjects. It then explores the many anatomical and psychological obsessions laid bare in the brushstrokes, navigating Bacon's oeuvre through the headings: Body, Head, Mouth, Hands, Wound, Detail, Irrational Marks, Witness and Paint.

In expanding and refining our understanding of what Bacon's paintings mean while also examining the techniques he employed to express his ideas, it offers audiences a new way to see and understand one of the twentieth century's most celebrated artists.