Bacon and Eliot
Eliot’s Sweeney Erect , as ‘We can see two people on the left who are described as prostitutes in the poem. ’ 18
How Bacon was inspired by T.S. Eliot’s poem Sweeney Erect
Sweeney Erect is where ‘Sweeney’ makes his debut . It is a poem in quatrains that was published in 1919. The poem takes the reader through a turbul ent mental and emotional landscape that leads to Sweeney’s room in a brothel. There, he is standing at a full-length mirror shaving while the woman he presumably slept with is writhing on the bed. He shows no interest in her suffering and goes about his business as calmly as he can. The poem concludes with other women intervening and trying to revive the woman with smelling salts. The speaker of the poem dehumanizes the woman, using stichomythia to portray her as a ‘withered root of knots and hair’ . 19 An image of dehumaniza tion that manifests in Bacon’s painting with on the left-hand panel [ Illustration 3 ] his treatment of flesh like putty, isolating the hair and making it one of the only distinguishing features of the painting. He capitalizes on the imagery and mood of Eliot and in a manner similar to bricolage he assembles different aspects of it to ‘hang’ and convey new sensations.
The writhing women on the left- hand panel seem to be a direct manifestation of Eliot’s line from Sweeney Erect
The epileptic on the bed Curves backward, clutching at her sides. 20
[Illustration 3] Detail of Sweeney Agonistes
The woman in the right-hand foreground [ Illustration 3 ] has an arm curved backwards and around as if clutching at her sides illustrated by Bacon with the heavy-set black line which accentuates the curve, a direct manifestation of Eliot’s imagery.
18 The Centre Pompidou, 2019. 19 Eliot 1963: 44 20 Ibid.: 44.
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