The Death of Francis Bacon: Max Porter

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Fortunately for Bacon, in 1581, he landed a job as a member for Cornwall in the House of Commons. Bacon was also able to return to Gray's Inn and complete his education. By 1582, he was appointed the position of outer barrister. Bacon's political career took a big leap forward in 1584 when he composed A Letter of Advice to Queen Elizabeth, his very first political memorandum.

Dynes, Wayne R. (ed.). Encyclopedia of Homosexuality. New York, NY: Garland, 1990. ISBN 978-0824065447 Inglis, Kiri (20 October 2020). "Announcing Max Porter's The Death of Francis Bacon | Journal". Faber . Retrieved 5 November 2023.

Noor, Tausif. " Behind the Hedonist Persona of Francis Bacon". The Nation, 9 June 2021. Retrieved 30 January 2022. Bacon's series of Popes, largely quoting Velázquez's famous Portrait of Innocent X (1650, Galeria Doria Pamphili, Rome), are striking images which further develop motifs already found in his earlier works, like the Study for Three Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion, such as the screaming open mouth. The figures of the popes, pictorially isolated by partly curved parallel lines indicating psychological forces and symbolising inner energy like strength of feeling, are alienated from their original representation and, stripped of their representation of power to allegories of suffering humanity. [64] Reclining figures [ edit ] The inspiration for the recurring motif of screaming mouths in many Bacons of the late 1940s and early 1950s was drawn from a number of sources, including medical text books. Kathleen Clark's 1939 book of X-Ray photographs was a major source. [65] He also used the works of Matthias Grünewald [66] and photographic stills of the nurse in the Odessa Steps scene in Eisenstein's 1925 silent film Battleship Potemkin. Bacon saw the film in 1935, and viewed it frequently thereafter. He kept in his studio a photographic still of the scene, showing a close-up of the nurse's head screaming in panic and terror and with broken pince-nez spectacles hanging from her blood-stained face. He referred to the image throughout his career, using it as a source of inspiration. [67]

It is well said by a philosopher that the assumption of forthcoming death frights men more than the death itself. The advent of death becomes more disturbing and horrifying with the grunts and screams of the dying man along with the frustrated and weeping faces of the dear ones. Such harshness of the situation makes the death appear to be more frightening than it really is. Gale, Matthew & Sylvester David. Francis Bacon: Working on Paper London: Tate Publishing, 1999. ISBN 1-85437-280-7Francis Bacon Studio". Artist's Studio Museum Network. Watts Gallery. Archived from the original on 12 August 2019 . Retrieved 25 November 2019. Bacon was born January 22, 1561, at York House off the Strand, London, the younger of the two sons of the lord keeper, Sir Nicholas Bacon, by his second marriage. Nicholas Bacon, born in comparatively humble circumstances, had risen to become lord keeper of the great seal. Francis’s cousin through his mother was Robert Cecil, later earl of Salisbury and chief minister of the crown at the end of Elizabeth I’s reign and the beginning of James I’s. From 1573 to 1575 Bacon was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, but his weak constitution caused him to suffer ill health there. His distaste for what he termed “unfruitful” Aristotelian philosophy began at Cambridge. From 1576 to 1579 Bacon was in France as a member of the English ambassador’s suite. He was recalled abruptly after the sudden death of his father, who left him relatively little money. Bacon remained financially embarrassed virtually until his death. Early legal career and political ambitions The younger of Sir Nicholas and Lady Anne's two sons, Francis Bacon began attending Trinity College, Cambridge, in April 1573, when he was 12 years old. He completed his course of study at Trinity in December 1575. The following year, Bacon enrolled in a law program at Honourable Society of Gray's Inn, the school his brother Anthony attended. Finding the curriculum at Gray's Inn stale and old fashioned, Bacon later called his tutors "men of sharp wits, shut up in their cells if a few authors, chiefly Aristotle, their dictator." Bacon favored the new Renaissance humanism over Aristotelianism and scholasticism, the more traditional schools of thought in England at the time. Bacon realized that facts have to be collected methodically so that comparisons can be made. It was not enough to search for confirming instances. Instead he saw that tables needed to be drawn up so that negative instances could be included and taken into consideration. He proposed doing refuting experiments which some have seen as anticipating Karl Popper's idea of falsification. This was a revolutionary and original achievement for which there are no prior instances in classical antiquity. On June 27, 1576, he and Anthony were entered de societate magistrorum at Gray's Inn (Inn of Court), and a few months later they went abroad with Sir Amias Paulet, the English ambassador at Paris. The disturbed state of government and society in France under Henry III of France afforded him valuable political instruction.