Study for a Self-Portrait—Triptych, 1985–86
Encyclopedia
Triptych
A triptych , from tri-= "three" + ptysso= "to fold") is a work of art which is divided into three sections, or three carved panels which are hinged together and can be folded shut or displayed open. It is therefore a type of polyptych, the term for all multi-panel works...
painted between 1985 and 1986 by the Irish
Irish people
The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...
born artist Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon (painter)
Francis Bacon , was an Irish-born British figurative painter known for his bold, austere, graphic and emotionally raw imagery. Bacon's painterly but abstract figures typically appear isolated in glass or steel geometrical cages set against flat, nondescript backgrounds...
. The work is an acknowledgment and examination of the effect of age and time on the human body and spirit, and was painted after a period when many close friends of the artist died. Although widely considered a masterpiece and one of Bacon's most personal works, the triptych is at the same time one of his least experimental and most conventional paintings. Bacon believed that the fatigue of old age and the complications of fame lead him to appreciate simplicity as a virtue of its own, a sentiment which he attempted transferred into his work. The only full-length self-portrait that Bacon made, the triptych has been described by the art critic David Sylvester
David Sylvester
Anthony David Bernard Sylvester CBE, was a British art critic and curator. Although he received no formal education in the arts, during his long career he was influential in promoting modern artists, in particular the work of Joan Miró, Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon.Born into a well connected...
as "grand, stark, ascetic
Asceticism
Asceticism describes a lifestyle characterized by abstinence from various sorts of worldly pleasures often with the aim of pursuing religious and spiritual goals...
."
A number of Bacon's closest friends died in the years before he began the triptych, and their loss weighed heavily on the artist. In 1979, the proprietor of Soho
Soho
Soho is an area of the City of Westminster and part of the West End of London. Long established as an entertainment district, for much of the 20th century Soho had a reputation for sex shops as well as night life and film industry. Since the early 1980s, the area has undergone considerable...
's Colony Room, Muriel Belcher
Muriel Belcher
Muriel Belcher was the founder and proprietress of a private drinking club known as the Colony Room at 41 Dean Street, Soho, London....
, passed, while in 1981 Bacon's youngest sister Winifred died. During the 1970s, he lost many of his friends, including his lover George Dyer. In an interview with David Sylvester in the early 1980s, he conceded that his friends "have been dying around me like flies and I've had nobody else to paint but myself...I loathe my own face, and I’ve done self-portraits because I’ve had nothing else to do".
The style of the work departs from Bacon's usual format. It is more symmetrical and places the figures more centrally; previous triptychs typically positioned the figures in the outer panels slightly towards the edge. The three panels share a cool, light-brown surface, while its figures are unusually diminished in size.
Study for a Self-Portrait continues a painterly motif that Bacon began early in his career: a spatially uniform and simple background (although the back line is curved in the center panel, a device generally only seen in much later work). Here, the figures are held together by pairs of vertical blinds in the background of each frame. In contrast to most of Bacon's works, the background in this work references contemporary art, drawing on the stillness of Barnett Newman
Barnett Newman
Barnett Newman was an American artist. He is seen as one of the major figures in abstract expressionism and one of the foremost of the color field painters.-Early life:...
's Voice (1950), while the elegance of the figures echoes Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse was a French artist, known for his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter...
's Music.
Sources
- Farr, Dennis; Peppiatt, Michael; Yard, Sally. Francis Bacon: A Retrospective, 1999. Harry N Abrams. ISBN 0-8109-2925-2
- Peppiatt, Michael. Francis Bacon: Anatomy of an Enigma. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1996. ISBN 0-2978-1616-0
- Schmied, Wieland. Francis Bacon: Commitment and Conflict. Munich: Prestel, 1996. ISBN 3-7913-1664-8
- Sylvester, DavidDavid SylvesterAnthony David Bernard Sylvester CBE, was a British art critic and curator. Although he received no formal education in the arts, during his long career he was influential in promoting modern artists, in particular the work of Joan Miró, Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon.Born into a well connected...
. The Brutality of Fact: Interviews With Francis Bacon. London: Thames and Hudson, 1987. ISBN 0-5002-7475-4 - Sylvester, David. Looking back at Francis Bacon. London: Thames and Hudson, 2000. ISBN 0-5000-1994-0