Artist Showdown

Francis Bacon - “Quotes”

Francis Bacon

• The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery.
• I don’t think people are born artists; I think it comes from a mixture of your surroundings, the people you meet, and luck.
• I paint for myself. I don’t know how to do anything else, anyway. Also I have to earn my living, and occupy myself.
• I need the city; I need to know there are people around me strolling, arguing, f**king—living, and yet I go out very rarely; I stay here in my cage.
• All artists are vain, they long to be recognised and to leave something to posterity. They want to be loved, and at the same time they want to be free. But nobody is free.
• Picasso is the reason why I paint. He is the father figure, who gave me the wish to paint.
• Picasso was the first person to produce figurative paintings which overturned the rules of appearance; he suggested appearance without using the usual codes, without respecting the representational truth of form, but using a breath of irrationality instead, to make representation stronger and more direct; so that form could pass directly from the eye to the stomach without going through the brain.
• Before I start painting I have a slightly ambiguous feeling: happiness is a special excitement because unhappiness is always possible a moment later.
• You could say that I have no inspiration, that I only need to paint.
• The creative process is a cocktail of instinct, skill, culture and a highly creative feverishness. It is not like a drug; it is a particular state when everything happens very quickly, a mixture of consciousness and unconsciousness, of fear and pleasure; it’s a little like making love, the physical act of love.