Oedipus And The Sphinx After Ingres 1983

Francis Bacon made this large painting, Oedipus And The Sphinx After Ingres, with oil on canvas, and look how the paint is both deliberate and accidental all at once. Bacon’s genius is that he makes the familiar strange; he takes the old masters and twists them into something utterly new. The physicality of the medium here—thick paint, thin washes, erasures, and rebuilds—creates a raw emotional experience. See how the pink hues clash with the greys, heightening the sense of unease? The bloody bandages on the figure’s leg are not just details but focal points of the entire composition. The circular marks give a sense of his subjects being caged. Bacon, like Goya before him, uses paint to confront the darker aspects of human existence. He isn't offering answers. Instead, he's diving headfirst into the messy ambiguity of life, inviting us to do the same.