While expounding Bacon's painting, irrational logic of feeling and painting behavior itself, this book also points out the correlation between painting and other art categories such as music, film and literature. Francis Bacon is an indispensable starting point for understanding the concept multiplication in Deleuze's philosophy.
Reflections on the relationship between ancient painting and figuration
Excerpt from Francis Bacon: The Logic of Feeling
-Authorized reprint-
Painting must snatch the image from the "figuration". However, Bacon put forward two factors, which made the relationship between ancient painting and concrete and graphic different from modern painting. On the one hand, photos play an illustrated function, which makes modern painting no longer need to complete this function that originally belonged to ancient painting. On the other hand, ancient painting is restricted by some "religious possibilities", which endows the image with concrete meaning, while modern painting is an atheistic game.
However, these two ideas actually borrowed from malraux may not be applicable. Because there will be competition between (artistic) behaviors, instead of one art being content to play the role abandoned by another art, we can't imagine that an artistic activity appears only to fulfill the responsibility left by a better art. Even if the photo is taken immediately, it has ambitions beyond reproduction, illustration or narration. When Bacon mentioned photos and the relationship between photography and painting to illustrate his ideas, what he said was much more profound. On the other hand, in ancient painting, the relationship between painting elements and religious feelings cannot be simplified as a specific function restricted by faith.
For example, we can take an extreme example, greco's The Funeral of Count Ogas. A horizontal line divides the painting into two parts, namely heaven and earth. In the next part, there is a concrete or narrative about the earl's funeral, although all the elements of body deformation, especially the practice of lengthening the body, have been fully used. However, in the sky, where Christ greeted the count, it was a kind of crazy happiness, a complete liberation: the image stood upright, stretched and thinned without restraint, and was free from all constraints. Although there are all kinds of appearances, there are actually no stories to tell. Images have been freed from the roles they reproduce, and they are directly related to a category of heaven. And this is what Christian painting finds in religious feelings: a pure painting atheism, in which the idea that God cannot be copied is strictly followed. In fact, with God, Christ, the Virgin Mary and even hell, lines, colors and sense of movement have all got rid of the demanding of reproduction. Image or standing, or curled up, or twisted into a ball, are completely divorced from the specific performance. They have nothing to copy or describe, because in this field, they just need to follow some ready-made symbol rules of the church. Therefore, for them, all they need to express is a "feeling" in heaven, underground or hell. Everything will be from the perspective of symbolic rules, and all colors in the world can be painted with religious feelings. At that time, it could not be said that "since God does not exist, everything is allowed". On the contrary. Because, because of the existence of God, everything is allowed. This is because of God, everything is allowed. Not only on the moral level (because all violence and evil deeds can be defended in a sacred way), but also on the aesthetic level, even on the aesthetic level, because the sacred image is permeated with a free creative vitality. Christ's body was created by a devil's inspiration, which can span all the "sensory fields" and all the "different sensory levels". Two more examples can be cited: Giotto's "Christ" has become a kite floating in the sky, just like an airplane, sending the mark of five injuries to San Francesco, and the lines that intermittently show the journey of five injuries are like random stitches, through which San Francesco can control the kite just like an airplane. Another example is the scene where Tintoretto's God created animals: God is like a starter. At one command, a group of disabled people were allowed to race. Birds and fish ran first, while dogs, rabbits, deer, cows and unicorns were still waiting.
We can't say that religious feelings support the concreteness in ancient paintings. On the contrary, it makes it possible to liberate the image and get rid of concretization. We can't say that in modern painting, because it is an atheistic game, it is so easy to give up figuration. On the contrary, in modern painting, a large number of photos and pictures have occupied the canvas before the painter begins to work. They invaded and besieged modern painting. In fact, it is wrong to think that the painter is working with a white blank canvas. On the surface of the canvas, there have been various fragmentary images that must be broken. And this is exactly what Bacon said when he mentioned photos: photos are not what people see visually, but what modern people see themselves. It becomes dangerous not because it is concrete, but because it tries to "dominate vision" and, of course, painting. So no matter what people say, although modern painting has given up religious feelings, it is in a very difficult situation because of the siege of photos, and it is difficult to get rid of concreteness, because concreteness seems to be its poor reserve. This difficulty is proved by abstract painting: only the great achievements of abstract painting can pull modern painting out of concreteness. However, isn't there another way, more direct and more emotional?