ABSTRACT
Francis Bacon lived a kind of self-imposed exile, constantly on the move from one rented room to another – as if pursued, like Orestes, by avenging Furies. Bacon in fact retained aspects of adolescence, with its echoes of Rimbaud and Raymond Radiguet, until his death: his youthfulness was an indispensable factor in his creative drive. Yet age worms its way into the most resolutely held youth, and it is worth noting that, however lithe and unmarked Bacon appears in photographs of this period, his eyes are those of a man who has lived his forty years to the full. What fascinated Bacon about South Africa – and what partly caused him to return there the following year – was the landscape and the wildlife. The role played by photography in the genesis of Bacon's images and in the artist's whole approach to painting cannot be over-emphasized.
