December 26, 2007
Francis Bacon, Oedipus and the Sphinx (after Ingres), 1983
This Bacon is, for some unknown reason to me, hanging on a far off corner in the new Modern Art Museum in Lisbon. And that's about the extent of my criticism of this fantastic new venue in my home city. It's a great painting - even despite the annoying powerpoint-like circles and arrow -, it's highly valued commercially these days and it's a great example of one of Bacon's greatest influences: Greek tragedies, fury waiting behind the door and all, as an impending doom over Oedipus' head as he answers the riddle. Commercial value shouldn't be a curator's main concern unless he works for the Sotheby's showroom but, please...
Unlike Ingres, Bacon chose to portray a submissive Oedipus, presenting his hurt foot as if it was an offerend. The name Oedipus can either mean "swollen feet" or "to be aware of one’s feet."
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OEDIPUS: You were a shepherd, just a hired servant
roaming here and there?
MESSENGER: Yes, my son, I was.
But at that time I was the one who saved you.
OEDIPUS: When you picked me up and took me off,
what sort of suffering was I going through?
MESSENGER: The ankles on your feet could tell you that.
OEDIPUS: Ah, my old misfortune. Why mention that?
MESSENGER: Your ankles had been pierced and tied together.
I set them free.
OEDIPUS: My dreadful mark of shame—
I’ve had that scar there since I was a child.
MESSENGER: That’s why fortune gave you your very name,
the one which you still carry.
--Sophocles, Oedipus Rex
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Maybe because I just finished reading Nureyev: the Life, when I look at the muscled figure in the painting with the bandaged foot, I can't help thinking of the ballet dancer's feet, crippled from decades of obsessively intense training. Also:
"One of these snaps, showing a gaunt Rudolf with his head turbaned in a towel, was given by Joule to Francis Bacon, who was so taken by the image that he stuck it to the wall of his chaotic studio. ... As the old master painted from photographs, Joule thought 'Maybe, just maybe' but Bacon returned the snapshot a week before he died saying 'You have it back. I know I'll never paint him.'. In the artist's archive, however, there are early photographs of Rudolf that he 'Baconized' with daubs and swirls of paint." -- Julie Kavanagh, Nureyev: the Life.
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Ingres, Oedipus and the sphinx
Posted by claudia