Reflecting back to the previous Bacon post, I found a video of Bacon talking about how he uses photography in his work. He was inspired by paintings by Van Gogh, Valazquez and many more artists and he also works from photography by Eadweard Muybridge. From a book I looked at in the library there was a page that contained photographic imagery of a subject he painted and there about six photographs of her face form different angles. When you see the painting next to the sourcing images you can see all the angles he painted from.
On the link attached on the bottom is a documentary on Bacon’s work on The South Bank Show and he talked how he paints. ‘Not illustration of reality, but to create images which are concentration of reality, and a short hand of sensation.’ Francis Bacon. Bacon finds painting straight onto the canvas makes it less of an illustration, because he think if he drew out the figures of the subject make it into an illustration. He thinks it’s more effective to attack the canvas with the paint straight away. I felt that this worked for me when painting the portrait of Anna and my self portrait, it was less time consuming and I felt the more paint I apply without the outline the more intruiging it is when the subject gradually appears through onto the canvas. When I paint someone I usually struggle to decide to choose between about ten images. Working the same way as Bacon would help this more.
But with my final pieces that I want for the degree show I know I eant another self portrait done potentially as the main piece to have a very detailed face of a really powerful emotion and blur out with another face (like using a slow shutter speed on a camera) to create an effect that looks like two completely different emotions. I’m quite photo shy so if someone was taking a picture of myself I would want to look away, so I know I want that to show in the painting. I need to take photos soon!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfTgEKQj0Dk
Bacon and Photography
