catko: (aany central park)
catko ([personal profile] catko) wrote2009-08-08 09:45 pm
Entry tags:

Francis Bacon

It's been a bad day for posting here, so I'll copy some posts I did from elsewhere.

"[Gary] described our day at the Met so well, I'll totally agree. The Francis Bacon exhibit was amazing (as were they all), and it just underscored something I've come to love about NYC--it seems like it's impossible for things to live up to their reputation, but they do, and even exceed it. The Bacon exhibit was room after room of amazing, scary paitings from every era of his (surprisingly long) history. Yes, the NY Times can cover all those topics, and when you turn to the inside for more of the story, its not just a couple more paragraphs, it's 4 or 5 columns more. Central Park isn't just a welcome patch of greenery, it's a baseball field, carousel, botanical garden, outdoor art exhibition, and so much more.



"Two of my favorite pieces at the show were of Bacon's lover, George Dyer. This one is just beautiful in real life, and there's a scene in the movie ("Love is the Devil", which I didn't realize that Dyer was played by Daniel Craig!) where Bacon sees this and decides to paint it. The other is the center of a tryptich about Dyer's death in a Paris hotel room. The excellent descriptions at the museum referred to this panel as showing, eerily, Dyer both unlocking the door, and his shadow already slipping into the room."