The appearance of the human figure in our contemporary society and in Bacon's work

Tanina

Sadi-Haddad                                                                                   SHORT ANALYSIS 2

Title: The Complexity of the Human Race in the Portrait of George Dyer in a Mirror.  

             In his double portrait, tortured by his lover George Dyer, Francis Bacon paints the violence, the cruelty and the tragedy: he paints things that can’t be seen at first sight. In order to illustrate the artwork of Bacon, I choose the essay of E.H Gombrich, Art and illusion. A study in the psychology of Pictorial representation because it questions the artistic representation and the artistic creation and it destroys the artistic conventions as Bacon did. This essay answer to the question: is there a reason to be for the style? The author explains why human figures are not represented the same way through different ages. Do people see and perceive the world differently? And if yes, why? For example, Egyptians in the Antiquity did not represent humans as we do today or as Francis Bacon do in the portrait of George Byer. This artwork is supposed to be a portrait, but Byer is not represented in a realist way, I can barely recognize its silhouette. According to the author, the artist has the power to represent his reality, what he “sees” because he has the power to see what others can not. In the Portrait of Georges of Georges Byer, the artist shares, by using artistic process, a part of himself, his feelings, his story with George Dyer.  In this paper, I am going to focus on the vision and the artistic perception of Bacon. How did Bacon see Georges Dyer and how did he share his perception? I will first focus on Bacon’s interpretation and his way to see Georges Dyer, and then the way he is sharing his vision.

              This artwork is a portrait of George Dyer, realised in 1968. It is a broken perspective. A man, George Dyer, is sitting on a brown chair, in the centre of the image. His body is distorted and I can distinguish a bird head, with a beak. He has something in his hand, but I do not clearly see what it is. Moreover, George Dyer is wearing a brown costume and white shirt. I can see a shadow of his head just next to him. The man is facing a mirror placed on a piece of furniture with a brown stand. In the mirror, I expect to see his face, but his face is modified and split in 2 by a strip of light space. The mirror reflects a face with brown hair and a hooked nose The face is pale, with 2 predominant colours: white and red. Moreover, there is a white stain standing on the furniture which is supporting the mirror.  The scene takes place in a blue circle with grey spots, enlightened by a source which is not part of the painting, like a projector: I see the shadows around the man which form a circle and make me think about a circus scene. It is more suggested than explicit because of the chair where the figure is seat and the ellipse which surround the figure. There is a contrast between the light and the obscurity with the “projector” which lights up the scene. The background is white with a half circle drawn above the scene: the scene seems in a circular room with white walls and ceiling. The loneliness of the character is very accentuated in this artwork; the man seems to confront himself with his own reflect. The atmosphere of this piece of art is gloomy, with a raw light.

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