Bacon

Author: Huang Shuping
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-09-01
Features: Francis Bacon (1561-1626) – a renowned materialist philosopher and scientist in the United Kingdom. He was revered as an epoch-making figure in the history of philosophy and science during the Renaissance. Marx called him the "true founder of British materialism and the entire modern experimental science." He was the one who proposed the phrase "knowledge is power." Bacon was also a modern British painter, representing a figure who had a significant impact on the reform of 20th-century painting. Observing his paintings is like gazing directly at the primal essence of "humanity"—both real and alien. The painter stripped away the elegance of the civilized world, revealing the desires, fears, anxieties, savagery, and grotesqueness within human nature, and colliding with the turmoil of the deep-seated insecurities people are unwilling to confront. As a result: screaming jaws, distorted faces, twisted limbs, overlapping images, or reflections through mirrors—all became the narrative of Bacon's paintings. Bacon only took up painting at the age of 35 and had no formal art education or training. Over the following 40 years of his painting career, he was influenced by Picasso, admired Velázquez, and imitated masters like Van Gogh. However, he ultimately developed his own unique and extreme personal painting style.