Francis Bacon (artist)

An artist must be nourished by his passions and his despairs. These things alter an artist whether for the good or the better or the worse. It must alter him.

Francis Bacon (28 October 1909 – 28 April 1992) was an Anglo-Irish figurative painter, a collateral descendant of the Elizabethan philosopher Francis Bacon. His artwork is well-known for its bold, austere, and often grotesque or nightmarish imagery

Quotes

• I feel ever so strongly that an artist must be nourished by his passions and his despairs. These things alter an artist whether for the good or the better or the worse. It must alter him. The feelings of desperation and unhappiness are more useful to an artist than the feeling of contentment, because desperation and unhappiness stretch your whole sensibility.
  • As quoted in The Artist Observed: 28 interviews with contemporary artists (1991) by John Gruen, p. 3
• The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery.
• I painted to be loved.
• I believe in deeply ordered chaos.
• Great art is always a way of concentrating, reinventing what is called fact, what we know of our existence - tearing away the veils that fact acquires through time.
• Painting is the pattern of one’s own nervous system being projected on canvas.

External links

• Francis Bacon Image Gallery
• The Francis Bacon Estate
• Tribute and links
• Francis Bacon gallery at MuseumSyndicate
• Love is the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon