119:. It may be more symmetrically refined, not as raw and has smoother edges, while it places the figures more centrally; previous triptychs typically positioned the figures unequally, typically slightly towards the edges so as to unnerve the viewer. The three panels share a cool, light-brown surface, while the figures are unusually diminished in size. Before this work, his heads were characterised by broad, almost wanton, brushstrokes. There were even instances, notably in his mid-1960s portraits of
110:, died and in 1981 Bacon's youngest sister Winifred died. During the 1970s, he lost many of his friends, including his long-term lover George Dyer. In an interview with Sylvester in the early 1980s, Bacon admitted his friends had been "dying around me like flies and I've had nobody else to paint but myself ... I loathe my own face, and I've done self-portraits because I've had nothing else to do".
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The triptych is widely considered a masterpiece and one of Bacon's most personal works, but is one of his least experimental and most conventional paintings. Bacon believed that the fatigue of old age and the complications of fame led him to appreciate simplicity as a virtue of its own, a sentiment
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While Bacon's earlier work often hid the figures behind veils or other concealing devices, the 1985 triptych leaves nothing hidden. His mid-career reduced portraits of friends to broad brush strokes cast with an almost drunken abandon, but the 1985 triptych is precise and reduced. In this respect,
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continues a painterly motif that Bacon began early in his career: a spatially uniform and simple background (although the back line is curved in the centre panel, a device generally only seen in much later work). Here, the figures are held together by pairs of vertical blinds in the background of
123:, where the whole head was depicted with a single stroke. In the 1985 triptych, he abandons that approach, building the self-portraits from tight and very fine brush strokes. Instead, Bacon chooses to focus on disintegration; the skulls are blood-spattered, with bone and blood flying out of them.
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The painting is built up from very even and smooth brush strokes, using mostly brown, cream, white and black colours, except around the faces. Bacon is ill-at-ease in each panel, seated cross-legged with his hands around his knees, though in the centre panel, one arm rests on the chair arm. The
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photographs; he never used a mirror for these works, claiming that he hated the sight of his own face, especially close up, and more as he got older. This is reflected in the current work; in the left and centre panels, large parts of his head have disintegrated or are missing. He explained to
49:. It is a brutally honest examination of the effect of age and time on the human body and spirit and was painted in the aftermath of the deaths of many of his close friends. It is Bacon's only full-length self-portrait, and was described by art critic
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the triptych can be read as the artist retreating into the academic finesse against which he once raged. The technique also evokes the background details of his seminal early-1970s
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A number of Bacon's closest friends had died in the years before he began the triptych, and their loss is evident in the triptych's sorrowful, mournful atmosphere. In 1979
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Formally, the work departs from Bacon's usual style, but in many ways, it can be considered as an extension of themes explored in his early-1970s
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each frame. In contrast to most of Bacon's work, this background references contemporary art, drawing on the stillness of
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Sylvester that he continued "painting it because I haven't any other people to do...One of the nicest things
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said was 'each day in the mirror I watch death at work.' That is what one does to oneself".
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painted between 1985 and 1986 by the Irish-born
English artist
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Study for
Portrait II (After the Life Mask of William Blake)
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Portrait of Isabel
Rawsthorne Standing in a Street in Soho
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Triptych
Inspired by T.S. Eliot's Poem "Sweeney Agonistes"
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Love Is the Devil: Study for a
Portrait of Francis Bacon
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Three
Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion
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Version No. 2 of Lying Figure with
Hypodermic Syringe
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The
Brutality of Fact: Interviews With Francis Bacon
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Study after Velázquez's
Portrait of Pope Innocent X
138:(1950), while the elegance of the figures echoes
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826:Three Studies for a Portrait of Henrietta Moraes
834:Three Studies for a Portrait of Muriel Belcher
709:Triptych Inspired by the Oresteia of Aeschylus
247:Farr, Dennis; Peppiatt, Michael; Yard, Sally.
61:which he attempted to transfer into his work.
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28:. Oil on canvas, each panel 198cm x 147.5cm.
885:Study for a Self-Portrait—Triptych, 1985–86
767:Three Studies for a Portrait of George Dyer
265:. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1996.
38:Study for a Self-Portrait—Triptych, 1985–86
26:Study for a Self-Portrait—Triptych, 1985–86
693:Two Figures Lying on a Bed with Attendants
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903:List of large triptychs by Francis Bacon
791:Portrait of George Dyer and Lucian Freud
632:Study of Red Pope 1962. 2nd version 1971
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277:Francis Bacon: Commitment and Conflict
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937:Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation
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324:. London: Thames and Hudson, 2006.
310:. London: Thames and Hudson, 2000.
296:. London: Thames and Hudson, 1987.
263:Francis Bacon: Anatomy of an Enigma
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164:List of paintings by Francis Bacon
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474:Three Studies from the Human Head
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877:Three Studies for Self-Portrait
861:Three Studies for Self Portrait
775:Portrait of George Dyer Talking
717:Second Version of Triptych 1944
661:Three Studies for a Crucifixion
498:Study for a Bullfight, Number 2
506:Three Studies of the Male Back
249:Francis Bacon: A Retrospective
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783:Three Studies for George Dyer
308:Looking back at Francis Bacon
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920:Influences on Francis Bacon
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908:Triptychs by Francis Bacon
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70:descriptions are based on
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423:Fragment of a Crucifixion
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279:. Munich: Prestel, 1996.
127:Study for a Self-Portrait
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16:Painting by Francis Bacon
458:Study for Crouching Nude
322:The Violence of the Real
251:, 1999. Harry N Abrams.
748:Triptych, May–June 1973
669:Three Figures in a Room
415:Wound for a Crucifixion
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383:Francis Bacon (artist)
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624:Study from Innocent X
592:Study after Velázquez
442:Figure in a Landscape
215:Sylvester (1987), 129
185:Sylvester (2000), 168
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740:Triptych–August 1972
320:Zweite, Armin (ed).
30:Marlborough Fine Art
914:The Black Triptychs
261:Peppiatt, Michael.
514:Blood on the Floor
306:Sylvester, David.
275:Schmied, Wieland.
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53:as "grand, stark,
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392:List of paintings
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818:Female portraits
608:Figure with Meat
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947:(1998 film)
939:(1981 book)
677:Crucifixion
525:Head series
466:Two Figures
407:Crucifixion
233:Zweite, 208
224:Schmied, 30
108:Colony Room
65:Description
962:Categories
170:References
983:Triptychs
888:(1985–86)
644:Triptychs
619:(c. 1954)
549:Head III
158:See also
154:series.
72:passport
43:triptych
32:, London
929:Related
573:Head VI
557:Head IV
541:Head II
434:Figures
347:article
241:Sources
55:ascetic
880:(1979)
872:(1973)
864:(1973)
845:(1967)
837:(1966)
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565:Head V
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533:Head I
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94:, 1973
83:Themes
584:Popes
343:1996
144:Music
136:Voice
41:is a
326:ISBN
312:ISBN
298:ISBN
281:ISBN
267:ISBN
253:ISBN
104:Soho
142:'s
134:'s
106:'s
57:".
964::
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208:^
178:^
146:.
375:e
368:t
361:v
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