ABSTRACT
Francis Bacon may well have embellished his 'bad boy' image in later life, making himself sound more mercenary and devious than he really was. Stronger than Bacon's love of freewheeling voluptuousness was a sense of purpose without which the young man would never have surfaced from the sea of painted faces and easy champagne to stake his claim as an artist. Joseph De Maistre arrived in his life just when Francis urgently needed a father-figure and mentor; his influence on Bacon turned out to be both opportune and decisive. Bacon had an expert knowledge and considerable personal experience of extreme sexual behaviour – and of sado-masochism in particular. The need to accept himself, with his driving homosexuality and ambitions which flouted everything his family stood for, dominated Bacon's early years in London. In his apprenticeship to painting, however, he was by no means so self-reliant.
