Francis Bacon at the
Hugh Lane,
Dublin
At the end of the Second World War, the talk in Britain and America was of a bright new future, a new eara of prosperity and consumption. It was expected that art would reflect this optimism. But viewers to a small exhibition in London were shocked and disturbed by the work of a new artist, Francis Bacon. His "Three studies for figures at the base of a crucifixion" showed disturbing fleshy humanoid figures, screaming with violence and pain.
Throughout his career Bacon never deviated from a concentration on the physical brutality of human existence. The people in his dark paintings are only just a step away from the contents of the butcher's shop. Bacon returned to two types of person again and again: the pope and an anonymous executive bureaucrat. These figures are always repugnant - violent and distorted - and oppressive. It is hard not to think of the inquisition and the repressive role of the church when seeing Bacon's popes.
The paintings are not at all overtly political, in fact they seem deeply personal, but like Samual Beckett in the world of theatre, they serve as a disturbing reminder of the alienation that exists even in the boom times of capitalism. These paintings are a reaction to shallow, shiny, pop culture.
Sent from his home in Dublin's Baggot Street to Europe for conducting a gay affair at the age of 16, Bacon seems to nevertheless held an interest in Ireland, for his paintings and contents of his studio have been given to the Hugh Lane Gallery. This is an extraordinary present of one of the West's most influential post-war painters. The Gallery has advertised the exhibition well, but then they stand to do very well from the bequest - as they have ended their policy of free admittance and charge for the Bacon exhibition. However the gallery has not done the artist justice, poor lighting and strong reflections from the glass mean that some of the power of these raging distorted paintings has been lost.