Study for Portrait VIII 1953

Francis Bacon made this painting, Study for Portrait VIII, using oil paint and probably a rag or two. Look at how the face emerges as a white smudge from the dark surroundings. It's like a ghost, almost not there. The texture is key here. See how Bacon layers thin washes of paint, scraping and blurring the figure? It's ghostly. The surface is a battleground of process, building an image but also almost destroying it in the same move. The gold lines act almost like a cartoonish rendering of space, which doesn't quite match up. They don't offer stability but rather they create the feeling of a cage. Bacon reminds me of Goya. Both artists dive headfirst into the murk, finding beauty in the grotesque, reminding us that art isn't always about pretty pictures. Sometimes, it’s about wrestling with the dark stuff.