Man at a Washbasin 1990

Francis Bacon made this painting, Man at a Washbasin, with oil paint, and the marks are just brutal. I can almost feel Bacon wrestling with the figure, smearing and scraping to catch something both fleshy and fleeting. The canvas has a greyish, fleshy tone too, like the color of death, and the man’s body is a mass of pinks, reds, and purples, as though bruised or decomposing. Look at how the blue of the shirt contrasts so violently with the skin, suggesting a kind of psychic violence. The shirt looks so much like the source of his torment, like its pulling at him. That looping line that defines the washbasin has a strange confidence that seems to mock the tortured figure. For me, Bacon's work has a kind of kinship with artists like Philip Guston, who also reveled in the messy, uncomfortable realities of existence. Ultimately, though, the painting remains an enigma, a visceral scream trapped in paint, and this ambiguity is, for me, the source of its power.