francis bacon essay

Francis Bacon was born on October 28 1909 in Dublin Ireland. At the age of 16, he moved to London and also lived for about two years in Berlin and Paris.

When he moved back to London in 1929, he established himself as a furniture designer and interior designer. In that year he began to use oil paint and he started to have an exhibition of a few of his paintings as well as some furniture and rugs in his studio.

His first exhibition took place at the Hanover Gallery in London in 1949. His first solo exhibition outside England was in 1953 at Durlacher Brothers in New York. His first retrospective was at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London in 1955.

The title of this picture is: Study after Velazquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X 1953.  The original image that Francis Bacon took inspiration off is called Portrait of Innocent X. Francis Bacon has used oil paintings on a canvas print.  He has made the image distorted to that of the original painting. He has used long brush strokes and bold colours. He has changed the colours of the clothes that the pope is wearing in the original. Throughout the year of this painting he made another 5 in the same style of this.

Head of a Man-Study of Drawing by Van Gogh, this is another oil on canvas painting by Francis bacon he painted this in 1959. He has made the person in the painting look like a clown with the pale white face and the blue and red colours to define the facial features. He has made this picture look like a clown wearing face paints this could be because he has made the dark background represent fear yet the pale colours on the face as a clown represent happiness and humour.

This is a self-portrait of Francis Bacon, which was made in 1973, it is titled self-portrait 1973.  This looks like that he is ill or is suffering from a hangover. It seems this is because he is sat besides a sink with his head in his hand looking down. It could also be that he has got a cut on his hand and he is sat there so the blood goes down the toilet.

You can see that the mirror at the side of the room is not reflecting the image well because his hand in on the front of his head but in the mirror it is at the back of his head and you should be able to see all the back of his head. Also in the mirror the colours of the chair and of his hair are not the same as in the full image.