Francis Bacon

About

The Pompidou Center's exhibition dedicated to one of the greatest painters of the twentieth century highlights his late works, realized since the great retrospective of the Grand Palais in 1971 until his death in 1992.

Francis Bacon has largely participated in building a critical view of the modern world. He appropriates classical culture, especially through myths, to present the darkest side.Violence, madness, or hybris, synonymous with excesses among the ancient Greeks, are themes that the British artist carries on powerful canvases such as his triptychs. In the second half of his career, Bacon brings books into his works. He then illustrates some of the terrifying expressions of his favorite authors, such as the "rattling of bones" from a poem by TS Eliot.

Reading Georges Bataille, Michel Leiris, or Nietzsche, Bacon creates a very polarized vision of the world, between civilization and barbarism, beauty and ugliness, life and death.Adopting a methodical, almost surgical approach - especially in the representation of the human body - he rejects any form of idealism. It is by operating this permanent work of deconstruction of the "poetic" world that Bacon's work is part of modernity.