'Flesh and Bone' Francis Bacon and Henry Moore at The Ashmolean, Oxford
“There’s a layer of flesh around the muscle that shimmers
with iridescence similar to that of mother of pearl. It’s surprisingly
beautiful,” went another normal
conversation from two West Country dwellers on their way in the car to see an
exhibition of Francis Bacon and Henry Moore’s work at The Ashmolean in Oxford.
Ok, so I was listening to my friend’s account of having to once skin a deer (as
you do) but unintentionally it couldn’t have actually been more appropriate way
of setting the tone for what was going to be a very fleshy, meaty, bony, but
also surprisingly beautiful sort of exhibition.
Francis Bacon and Henry Moore at The Ashmolean, subtitled
‘Flesh and Bone’ features over sixty works from paintings, drawings and
sculptures by the two artists (with the majority of work dating from the 1950’s
and 60’s).
“Bacon concentrating on flesh, so mortal, so
easily corrupted, and Moore on bone, the human remnant that survives for
millennia.”
Until now the only known connection between the two
artists was more to do with the fact that they worked during the same time, Bacon
growing up within eleven years younger than Moore in the early 1900’s,
surviving two world wars and both working simultaneously in London. However, the
exhibition at The Ashmolean is the first exhibition to present selected Moore
sculptures/drawings alongside Bacon’s paintings drawing attention to the
parallels in themes, working practices and formal qualities the artists shared
in their work. And let me tell you, the results are rather insightful!
This is a real curator’s type of exhibition, and by that
I mean the real success and interest lies with how the show’s been put together
in a way that two opposing artists have been reinterpreted as a result of being
exhibited alongside each other; different, for example, from a retrospective or
show whose aim is to represent a body or breadth of work. You can still expect
to find several large scale Bacon paintings depicting distorted, painterly figures/bodies
as well as the more solid, smooth, reclining figures of which Moore is renowned
for. What is clever, is the curation of presenting the two together, it’s the
kind of comparative analysis that art students are taught to put together in
their visual culture essays, “what if you look at this artist, then another
artist working with a different medium and then see what
similarities/comparisons you can make between the two” Efforts often result in
a thoughtful new insight into what otherwise has become familiar work. It opens
new interpretation and thinking that can make us look at the work differently.
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| Moore’s Animal Head; and a detail from Bacon’s Portrait of Man with Glasses. Photographs: The Henry Moore Foundation; The Estate of Francis Bacon * |
That’s what the curation of Bacon Moore does for the
artists’ work at the Ashmolean. I looked for sculptural qualities in Bacon’s
figures and admired the painterly quality and gesture in Moore’s drawings. Perhaps what doesn’t translate as well or so
easily for me is Moore’s actual sculptures which appear to be more dated and
familiar over the years than Bacon’s paintings which still feel contemporary
and stir what I can probably only describe as a more prompt, gut reaction than
Moore’s sculptures which still leave me feeling a bit cold. However, Moore’s
sculptures have all the more to gain from this exhibition as it’s the way I
viewed his work that changed the most. I had always thought Moore’s figures as
being in a state of calm, laid back (literally reclining in some cases), soft
curving and undulated like the Yorkshire hills that helped inspire their form.
But seeing them alongside Bacon has made them all the more sinister. What was
once reclining now looks awkward, uncomfortable and even vulnerable. This
reading is further developed with the addition of Moore’s shelter drawings;
dark, intense images that Moore captured of people huddled, stooped and lying in
shelters during World War Two. The figures in these drawings are more
distorted, ghostly and malformed like that of Bacon’s figures. Making links
between the formal qualities their works is now easier to see. Equally, I was
surprised to see sculptural qualities in Bacon’s paintings (aside from the
surfaces of his paintings which are in themselves quite sculptural) noticing
how he placed his figures on ledges, edges, chairs or pedestals. Like a carcass
of meat in a butcher’s window there is something chillingly voyeuristic and
something of an awareness of presentation in how Bacon’s figures sit or lie
within their constructed window-like frames. Bodies in Bacon’s paintings appear moulded and
shaped as though they were made of unset clay. Moore’s sculptures on the other
hand become the solidified version of a Bacon painted from.
However for this joint exhibition of artists to work
well, does the connection/the links that the curator is making between the work
need to be believable? Or is it important for us, we the audience, to keep in
mind that this is a proposed interpretation of the artists’ works and is not
necessarily factual proof that the two artists influenced each other. Like the
big exhibition, ‘Matisse Picasso’ at the Tate Modern from 2002, the connection
is more speculative (however likely) rather than definitive. Not that any of
that gets in the way of how one views the work, I don’t think, the distinctions
between their work could be purely coincidental. What is clear, is that this
is a rewarding exhibition to view, certainly challenging some of my
preconceived thoughts of Bacon and Moore. If Picasso’s dictum, ‘Good artists
copy, great artists steal.’ is to be believed then whether Bacon and Moore took
inspiration or stole ideas from each other or not the fact that that it has taken
us this long to notice can only be proof that as artists in their own ways they
are both great.
Flesh and Bone is on at The Ashmolean,
Oxford until January 19th, for more details visit:
http://www.ashmolean.org/exhibitions/baconmoore/
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