Monday, February 3, 2020

Bacon: Always Relevant



This morning, on a review of David Lynch’s paintings, the author quoted the following from a John Berger essay on Francis Bacon’s and Walt Disney’s figures (certainly, on the surface, a weird coupling) :

“…the marks they bear, their wounds, look self-inflicted.  But self-inflicted in a highly special sense.  Not by an individual but by a special species, Man – because… the distinction between individual and species becomes meaningless.”

I went googling, not very deeply, for the source of the quote, and, of course, landed on another essay.  An essay that, through Berger’s re-evaluation of Francis Bacon, speaks urgently to our times.  It is one of the most powerful reviews I have read in a very long time.  It's pre-Trumpian date makes it prescient; it's content makes it feel as if it were written five minutes ago.


-katya

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