Dimensions: support, each: 1981 x 1473 mm frame (each): 2175 x 1668 x 102 mm
Copyright: © Estate of Francis Bacon | CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 DEED, Photo: Tate
Editor: This is Francis Bacon’s *Triptych - August 1972*, a large-scale oil on canvas work. The figures seem so distorted, almost grotesque, and it creates a very unsettling feeling. What do you make of the composition? Curator: Indeed. Note the spatial relationships. The compression of form against the picture plane, the claustrophobic background. Bacon eschews traditional perspective, favoring a flattening effect that heightens the visceral impact. Consider, too, the use of color: muted tones juxtaposed with bursts of raw pigment. Editor: So, it’s less about what's depicted and more about how it's depicted? Curator: Precisely. Bacon’s genius lies in his manipulation of form and color to evoke profound emotional responses. He subverts conventional representation to reveal the raw, existential core of human experience. Editor: I see it differently now, focusing on how the artist conveyed feeling through the medium. Curator: Agreed, a good formalism enriches our viewing experience.
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http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/bacon-triptych-august-1972-t03073
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This work is generally considered one in a series of Black Triptychs which followed the suicide of Bacon’s lover, George Dyer. Dyer appears on the left and Bacon is on the right. The central group is derived from a photograph of wrestlers by Edward Muybridge, but also suggests a more sexual encounter. The seated figures and their coupling are set against black voids and the central flurry has been seen as ‘a life-and death struggle’. The artist’s biographer wrote: ‘What death has not already consumed seeps incontinently out of the figures as their shadows.’ Gallery label, September 2016
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