Bacon and Eliot
onto a canvas for this to then be taken on by his view ers’ ‘nervous system’ . 5 In an article titled ‘ A neuroscientist's view: how Bacon's paintings shake up the nervous system’ Martin Skov, who works in the field of neuro- aesthetics, outlines how Bacon does this, stating that he, ‘attempted to project onto the canvas experiences that formed an “ assault ” on the nervous system in such a way that the resulting images themselves would impart a shock to the viewer’ . 6 Bacon’s aim of creating an image that was purely concerned with the viewers’ ‘nervous system’ came with an empiricist belief that his work was purely sensory, leaving little room for interpretation. This is an opinion that is repeated in David Sylvester’s Interviews With Francis Bacon, a key source for this essay. Bacon summed up his whole catalogue of works as to concern only ‘sensation’ 7 with the aim of addressing the nervous system of its viewers. He wished to create an image purely out of chance, 8 leaving little space for interpreters to see to what he was inspired. This is what I have referred to as Bacon’s an anti-interpretation dogma. However, there are times where Bacon moderates his anti- interpretation stance, stating that ‘in spite of theoretical imag es made up of irrational marks, inevitably illustration has to come into it to make certain parts’. He called his intention of painting an image from purely his ‘nervous system’ as ‘a particular theory of mine which is impossible to achieve’ , 9 allowing for interpretation and analysis of his work and the inspiration he took from Eliot.
Bacon’s early career, Three Studies for Figures at The Base of a Crucifixion and T.S. Eliot’s The Family Reunion
The first manifestation of T.S. Eliot’s writing within Francis Bacon’s painting came in 1944 in Three Studies for Figures at The Base of a Crucifixion [ Illustration 1 ], inspired partly by his viewing of T.S. Eliot’s 1939 play The Family Reunion in March 1939. 10 Although Bacon had been painting for twenty years, this painting was considered by Bacon’s to be the ‘fons et origo’ of his career and marked him becoming a mature painter. Bacon saw the Eumenides (three Greek goddesses of vengeance and retribution who punished men for crimes against the natural order) in flight on a London stage when the Westminster Theatre put on The Family Reunion in 1939. The play incorporates elements from Greek drama inspired by both Aeschylus’s trilogy The Oresteia and mid-twentieth-century detective plays to portray the protagonist Harry Monchensey’s journey from guilt to redemption. In The Family Reunion Harry is chased by Eumenides, who he believes are punishing him for the death of his wife. However, the root of his guilt harks back to past crimes, as he learns that his father planned to kill his mother while she was pregnant with him. The Eumenides appear at regular intervals throughout the play, framed as shadows against the windows or looming out from behind the curtains, a ghoulish manifestation of the guilt he feels. Death,
5 Skov, M. 2019. 6 Ibid.
7 Sylvester and Bacon 1987: 58. 8 Sylvester and Bacon 2016: 62. 9 Ibid.: 147. 10 Ottinger 2019: 20.
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