Dimensions: support: 813 x 686 mm frame: 943 x 793 x 59 mm
Copyright: © Estate of Francis Bacon | CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 DEED, Photo: Tate
Editor: This is Francis Bacon's "Portrait of Isabel Rawsthorne", currently residing at the Tate. The dark background and distorted features create such a unsettling mood. What do you make of this portrait? Curator: The smeared and almost violent application of paint isn’t just about representing a likeness, it’s about conveying a deeper psychological truth. Bacon is exploring the raw, primal aspects of human existence. Do you see how the face seems both present and dissolving? Editor: Yes! Almost like a fleeting memory or a suppressed emotion trying to break free. Curator: Precisely. It speaks to the fragility of identity and the weight of experience, and how time and trauma can distort our self-perception. We’re not just looking at a face; we're glimpsing a soul under pressure. Editor: It's amazing how much emotion can be conveyed through such abstract forms. Curator: Indeed. Bacon reminds us that images are powerful carriers of cultural memory and individual anguish.
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http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/bacon-portrait-of-isabel-rawsthorne-t00879
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This is one of the many paintings Bacon made of his friend, the artist Isabel Rawsthorne. He preferred to base such works on photographs of the subject rather than work from life.Intimate knowledge of the sitter was also essential. ‘What I want to do is to distort the thing far beyond the appearance, but in the distortion to bring it back to a recording of the appearance’, he said. Gallery label, May 2007
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