Figures in a street 1983

Francis Bacon made this painting with oil paint, and pastel, probably over many weeks. The dominant red-orange colour must have been troweled on, in a fury, or perhaps mixed slowly to get it just so. The dark, ambiguous space at the back looks almost like a stage set. I wonder what it was like to be Bacon. There’s this figure, isolated, a kind of ghostly, pinkish blob, trapped in a glass box, like an animal in the zoo or a specimen in a lab. Then there are these tiny, blurry people on the street. They seem to be walking past, not noticing. That arrow is also pointing directly to the figure, making you feel watched, exposed. Bacon’s paint is visceral. He makes you feel uneasy in your skin. But there’s something beautiful in that too, like he's reminding us we're alive. He was influenced by Picasso and Surrealism, and he pushed painting in new directions. Each artist is having a conversation with each other, across time, and keeping the act of painting alive.