Bacon and Bergson on Time and Motion

Abstract

he bearing of Bergsonian thought on Bacon’s paintings has become apparent as a result of Deleuze’s study, Francis Bacon: Logique de la sensation (1981). But aside from Deleuze’s application, there is a lot to recommend constructing a parallel between Bacon and Bergson as figures in their own right. This article explores Bergson’s approaches to temporality and the idea of immediate experience, and applies these to Bacon’s oeuvre, especially with respect to the artist’s antithetical views about an interpretation of narrative, the violence in his work and the phenomenology of the body.