Study of a Baboon

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Study of a Baboon is an oil painting by the British painter Francis Bacon from 1953. The work is currently in the MoMA in New York. The canvas has a size of 198 by 137 cm. Like most of Bacon's works, it is not varnished , but rather framed behind glass.

description

The picture shows a baboon with its mouth torn open over a grass steppe, the picture space is halved by a lattice fence. The horizon is reproduced in brown-black tones, with a strong contrast to the sand-colored foreground. Within the composition there is a staggering of the pictorial elements, which creates a certain amount of spatiality, although no specific perspective was used. In addition, spatiality is suggested by overlapping and undercutting, but at the same time its coherence is broken. Bacon understood the oil paint as a material as well as the canvas itself. In this case, too, Bacon used the back of a primed canvas, which made the painting technique typical of Bacon possible in the first place. Bacon skillfully differentiated between the glaze application in the shape of the baboon and the dry, ductile lines of the wire pattern on the fence. The structure of the canvas shines through at various points because Bacon chose a very dry application of paint. He also proceeded very unconventionally when selecting his painting tools - household brushes and similar objects were also used.

Possible interpretations

South Africa trip

In 1950 Bacon visited his mother in South Africa , where he also studied the wildlife of the region. Bacon has always been very interested in the human mouth, the baboon has a mouth with particularly pronounced, long canine teeth. Particularly noticeable is the baboon's yawning, where the impressive teeth are clearly visible. An ambivalence between yawning and roaring becomes clear, creating a level of meaning between aggression and boredom - perhaps even an aggression out of boredom and being locked up, which can also be suspected in the locked animal. Bacon was equally fascinated by the vastness of the grasslands of the savannah , but above all by the danger lurking there, as it is difficult to make out stalking animals in the tall grass. Furthermore, the fence seems to cut through the picture space, which is why its function is not clearly understandable. It is possible that the zoos in Africa themselves inspired Bacon to depict this, as the animals living there are protected within the parks on the one hand, but are also locked up on the other.

Stay in Egypt / Baboon god Thoth

After his stay in South Africa, Bacon also visited Egypt on his return journey. Of particular interest were the ruins and images of gods for Bacon. In the series of the ancient Egyptian gods there is also a god in baboon form, who is an embodiment of the god Thoth . This is the god of wisdom and the art of writing. His role is to ensure that neither side wins the upper hand during the mythological battle of order and chaos. The result is an analogy to Bacon's lifestyle, who always moved between the search for security and self-destructive tendencies. The sculptures of Egypt left a lasting impression on Bacon. He made other paintings with corresponding subjects and visited the Pergamon Museum on his second stay in Berlin in 1986 . Thus, even six years before his death, the Egyptian Collection was of great interest to him.

The pictures of Muybridge

Bacon used a large repertoire of found visual material for his work. The motion studies by the English photographer Eadweard Muybridge were also found among the images from Bacon's studio . Muybridge also provides a movement analysis of the baboon, which Bacon could have inspired to choose his subject.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=80580 , entry on the work in the MoMA database, as of April 3, 2013.
  2. ↑ Schmied, Wieland. Francis Bacon: the consciousness of violence. Munich [u. a.]: Prestel, 1996, p. 87.
  3. ↑ Peppiatt, Michael. Francis Bacon: Anatomy of a Riddle. Cologne: DuMont, 2000, p. 144.
  4. ^ Entry on the work in the MoMA database , as of April 3, 2013.
  5. ↑ Peppiatt, Michael. Francis Bacon: Anatomy of a Riddle. Cologne: DuMont, 2000, p. 146.
  6. ↑ Peppiatt, Michael. Francis Bacon: Anatomy of a Riddle. Cologne: DuMont, 2000, p. 328.
  7. ↑ Peppiatt, Michael. Francis Bacon: Anatomy of a Riddle. Cologne: DuMont, 2000, p. 150

literature

  • Arya, Rina. Francis Bacon: painting in a godless world . Farnham [u. a.]: Lund Humphries, 2012.
  • Peppiatt, Michael. Francis Bacon: Anatomy of a Riddle. Cologne: DuMont, 2000.
  • Russell, John. Francis Bacon. Berlin: Propylaen-Verl., 1972.
  • Schmied, Wieland. Francis Bacon: the consciousness of violence . Munich [u. a.]: Prestel, 1996.
  • Entry on the work in the MoMA database , as of April 3, 2013.