terça-feira, 25 de novembro de 2008
Interviews
David Sylvester - Are you ever as moved by looking at a still life or a landscape by a great master as you are by looking at paintings of the human image? Does Cézanne still life or landscape ever move you as much as a Cézanne portrait or nude?
Francis Bacon - No, it doesn't, although I think that Cézanne's landscapes are very much better than his figures, generally. I think that there are one or two figure-paintings which are marvellous, but generally speaking I think the landscapes are better.
DS - Nevertheless, the figures say more to you?
FB - They do, yes.
DS - What is it that made you paint a number of landscapes at one time?
FB - Inability to do the figure.
DS - And did you feel that that you weren't going to do landscapes for long?
FB - I don't know that I felt that at the time. After all, one is always hoping that one will be able to do something nearer one's instinctive desire. But certainly landscapes interest me much less. I think art is an obsession with life and after all, as we are human beings, our greatest obsession is with ourselves. Then possibly with animals, and then with landscapes.
DS - You're really affirming the traditional hierarchy of subject matter by which history painting — painting of mythological and religious subjects — comes top and then portraits and then landscape and then still life.
FB - I would alter them round. I would say at the moment, as things are so difficult, that portraits come first.
DS - In fact, you've done very few paintings with several figures. Do you concentrate on the single figure because you find it more difficult?
FB - I think that the moment a number of figures become involved, you immediately come on to the story-telling aspect of the relationships between figures. And that immediately sets up a kind of narrative. I always hope to be able to make a great number of figures without a narrative.
DS - As Cézanne does in the bathers?
FB - He does.
David Sylvester in Interviews with Francis Bacon, 1975.
Francis Bacon - No, it doesn't, although I think that Cézanne's landscapes are very much better than his figures, generally. I think that there are one or two figure-paintings which are marvellous, but generally speaking I think the landscapes are better.
DS - Nevertheless, the figures say more to you?
FB - They do, yes.
DS - What is it that made you paint a number of landscapes at one time?
FB - Inability to do the figure.
DS - And did you feel that that you weren't going to do landscapes for long?
FB - I don't know that I felt that at the time. After all, one is always hoping that one will be able to do something nearer one's instinctive desire. But certainly landscapes interest me much less. I think art is an obsession with life and after all, as we are human beings, our greatest obsession is with ourselves. Then possibly with animals, and then with landscapes.
DS - You're really affirming the traditional hierarchy of subject matter by which history painting — painting of mythological and religious subjects — comes top and then portraits and then landscape and then still life.
FB - I would alter them round. I would say at the moment, as things are so difficult, that portraits come first.
DS - In fact, you've done very few paintings with several figures. Do you concentrate on the single figure because you find it more difficult?
FB - I think that the moment a number of figures become involved, you immediately come on to the story-telling aspect of the relationships between figures. And that immediately sets up a kind of narrative. I always hope to be able to make a great number of figures without a narrative.
DS - As Cézanne does in the bathers?
FB - He does.
David Sylvester in Interviews with Francis Bacon, 1975.
