Thank you, Francis.

I wanted to follow up on my recent post about the essential role conversation plays in appreciating art by sharing a wonderful encounter I had today involving one of its most challenging and provocative painters, Francis Bacon. 

On the second floor of SAM hangs Bacon’s 1967 study of the British model Henrietta Moraes. Like many of Bacon’s works, it can prove a tough pill to swallow. Here he is using oil and pastel in queasy combination to spatchcock a beautiful woman across a piece of Pop Art furniture. It’s visceral, confrontational and for many people, hard to stand in front of. So what’s the attraction? 

By a funny coincidence, I fell into conversation with a nurse (we’ll call him John) at my doctor’s office earlier today about this very topic. John had asked me in that general way people do if I “had any plans for the weekend?” I told him that I was heading over to SAM to prepare a talk about Bacon. John’s eyes lit up. “I love Bacon!” And so I asked John why. 

John explained that he had had a tough time as a kid and grew into adulthood with a relatively dim view of the world. He saw the pain and horror that people were capable of, and he appreciated Bacon’s “honesty” on the topic. For him Bacon was authentic and “raw”. John felt a kinship with, and an appreciation of, a man who wasn’t afraid to share his “truth”, and to do it so publicly. (All the more so when you consider that Bacon was crippled by shyness his entire life)

“What about the way he paints?” I replied. “How do you feel about his oils and pastels? His colors? Some people find them ugly, or at least difficult to spend a lot of time with. And do you think your relationship with Bacon has changed as you’ve grown older?” 

John said that it had. He still greatly admired Bacon, and he was grateful for the role the artist has played in his own life. These days, John explained, he has grown to appreciate the delicate balance he experiences when standing in front of a painting by Bacon. On the one hand, he feels himself being drawn into the canvases by the powerful emotions contained in them. On the other hand, he feels Bacon’s technique pushing him back in equal measure, leading him to a place midway between what one feels and what one sees. “It’s the same way with Van Gogh,” John concluded. “And Van Gogh was an artist Bacon greatly admired.”, I replied.

Today two strangers, one from New Zealand, the other from London, found common ground in a City thousands of miles from either home discussing a painter most are unaware of, and many find hard to take. In the process, we changed each other's way of seeing. John left, making a note to head over to SAM to view Ms. Moraes, and I got to look at a Bacon through John’s eyes. What a gift.