''Head II'' is an oil and
tempera
Tempera (), also known as egg tempera, is a permanent, fast-drying painting medium consisting of pigments mixed with a water-soluble binder medium, usually glutinous material such as egg yolk. ''Tempera'' also refers to the paintings done in ...
on hardboard painting by the Irish-born British figurative artist
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban (; 22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626) was an English philosopher and statesman who served as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England under King James I. Bacon argued for the importance of nat ...
. Completed in 1948, it is the second in a series of six heads, painted from the winter of 1948 in preparation for a November 1949 exhibition at the Hanover Gallery, London.
[Russell, 38]
The figure seems half human, half animal, and has disintegrated to an extent that, like the preceding ''
Head I'' of the series, the entire upper head has disappeared leaving only mouth and jaw. The figure is set in a shallow pictorial space, and is positioned behind curtains that borrow from
Titian
Tiziano Vecellio (; 27 August 1576), Latinized as Titianus, hence known in English as Titian ( ), was an Italian Renaissance painter, the most important artist of Renaissance Venetian painting. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, near Belluno.
Ti ...
's 1558 ''Portrait of Cardinal Filippo Archinto''. The curtains are fastened at one point by a safety pin. John Russell sees the curtains as enclosing the figure, as if the walls of a prison or execution dock. Remarking on their dreary and drab appearance he further speculates that they seem "stiffened by fifty year's ''crasse'' of a tenth rate lodging-house; or they could be sliding shutters that has been pulled apart to admit a new victim."
[Russell, 35]
The painting's overall
grisaille
Grisaille ( or ; , from ''gris'' 'grey') means in general any European painting that is painted in grey.
History
Giotto used grisaille in the lower registers of his frescoes in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua () and Robert Campin, Jan van Ey ...
appearance give the impression of x-ray photographs, and the look may have been inspired by K.C. Clark's ''Positioning In Radiography'', a book Bacon often acknowledged as a key source for his work. The painting contains a small arrow just below the figures mouth; the first appearance of a motif the artist was to continue using for the rest of his career.
[Dawson, 44]
See also
*
List of paintings by Francis Bacon
This is an incomplete list of paintings by the Irish-born British painter Francis Bacon (1909–1992).
1930s
;c.1929–30
*''Painting'' (Oil on canvas, 91.5 cm × 61 cm, Private Collection (long term loan to the Tate Gallery))
;1933
*'' ...
Notes
Sources
*Dawson, Barbara; Sylvester, David. ''Francis Bacon in Dublin''. London: Thames & Hudson, 2000.
*Farr, Dennis; Peppiatt, Michael; Yard, Sally. ''Francis Bacon: A Retrospective''. NY: Harry N Abrams, 1999.
*
Peppiatt, Michael. ''Anatomy of an Enigma''. London: Westview Press, 1996.
*
Russell, John. ''Francis Bacon (World of Art)''. NY: Norton, 1971.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Head II
1949 paintings
Paintings by Francis Bacon
Heads in the arts