The Totally Frightful Issue: Francis Bacon

It’d be a glaring omission not to include the Irish-born painter Francis Bacon in The Totally Frightful Issue.

Though he started his artistic career as an interior decorator, Bacon made a name for himself with his vivid, figurative depictions of humans in pain, yearning to capture, as he said, “sensation.” As is so often the case in art, the form of this sensation depends largely on the viewer.

While some insist his work draws on the violent, world war torn period in which he came of age, others narrow in on his homo-ways to explain the radical sexuality in his distorted, often grotesque images.

Regardless of one’s take on the matter, we think he’s dreadfully frightful – in the best way possible, of course.

See a few of our favorite Francis Bacon paintings, after the jump…

Images:
“Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion” (1944)
“Man in a Cap” (1943)
“Study of a Nude” (1952-53)
“Head IV” (1949)
“Two Figures” (1953)
“Figure with Meat” (1954)