Remaking the Body: The Cultural Dimensions of Francis Bacon

摘要

In 2008 the Tate Gallery hosted a retrospective of Francis Bacon to commemorate his centenary. This occasion was one of the motivations for presenting this reflection on Bacon and his legacy 16 years after his death. The exhibition demonstrated Bacon's technical ability to capture the nuances of flesh in a remarkably visceral way and consolidated his position as one of the greatest painters of the human body. In this article I want to concentrate on the cultural dimensions of Bacon's Weltanschauung. I argue that it is not a misrepresentation to discuss Bacon as a social and cultural commentator but rather a way of intensifying his aestheticism.