Francis Bacon or the Measure of Excess
ACC Art Books
My library has quite a considerable segment dedicated to the art of and literature about Francis Bacon, which has been accumulated for over two decades and while I always eagerly welcome new additions to the fold, there are sometimes elaborations in book form that actually enrich my collection.
Case in point: Yves Peyre’s Francis Bacon or the Measure of Excess.
Based on first-hand experience and his long-standing friendship with Francis Bacon, Peyre chronicles the artist’s journey from its genesis via the evolution of his art to the ultimate culmination, resulting in some of his more prominent artworks in the 1980s.
What I specifically like about Peyre’s approach is how he navigates between Bacon’s yin and yangs, e.g. life and death, beauty, violence and torment, civilisation and its downfall, lust and disgust, et cetera.
The tome will appeal to both the aficionados as well as the uninitiated as it starts off with a detailed biography to create the foundation to then drill deeper in a bid to meticulously analyse not merely individual artworks but Bacon’s oeuvre and its significance at large.
With Peyre’s intimate knowledge of Francis Bacon’s approach to art and his life in general as well as his pedigree, inspirations and hauntings, he effortlessly manages to engage the reader as he guides us through the factors that influenced him from philosophical, political and poetic angles and thereby adds a unique viewpoint to the canon of explorations that try to explain the becoming of one of the most significant and idiosyncratic artists of the twentieth century.
A monograph that serves in equal measure as a monumental tribute to Bacon as well as a veritable resource for anyone remotely interested in twentieth-century figurative art.
The fact that the both informative and inquisitive essays are substantiated by aesthetically pleasing large high quality illustrations does not hurt either.
