ABSTRACT
In the conversations between Francis Bacon and David Sylvester published under the title The Brutality of Fact (Sylvester 1987) Bacon makes several statements about what he thinks art is and about his own ways of making paintings. He rejects illustration and narration and seeks to replace them with what he calls 'matters of fact'. These turn out to be nothing less than sensations that act directly on the nervous system. This allows him to compare the violence of reality in his paintings with the violence of everyday life:
Isn't it that one wants a thing to be as factual as possible and at the same time as deeply suggestive or deeply unlocking of areas of sensation other than simple illustration of the object that you set out to do? Isn't that what all art is about?
(Sylvester 1987: 56)As an artist you have to, in a sense, set a trap by which you hope to trap this living fact alive. How well can you set the trap? ... I think the texture of a painting seems to be more immediate than the texture of a photograph, because the texture of a photograph seems to go through an illustrational process onto the nervous system, whereas the texture of a painting seems to come immediately onto the nervous system.
(ibid.: 57—8)