Spirit of the Artefact
How does the character of a person carry on, how does the personality of a creator linger? Some may say just look at the visible paint strokes of Van Gogh or the manic splatters of Pollock, but there is still a level of detachment. Now see the artefact, in a corner of an exhibition on the studio of Francis Bacon in the Hugh Lane Gallery is, a little forgotten looking, Bacon’s very own table.
It lingers in the hallway large and heavy like a horse, but overshadowed by the reconstruction of his studio assembled behind the panes of glass ahead of it. The table does not look like it is meant to be there. It is dark and dry, the surface heavily scratched and worn whilst the legs have many chunks taken out of them.
There is a map of stains across the aged wood of the table, a series of blotched continents all linked together by spillages and wounds. Here spread out are the years of a man at his most intimate, as much as his paintings give an insight into the interior of the artist that Bacon was, the surface of this table presents a painting of the life that he led.
So many stains there were difficult to differentiate as wine, coffee or blood. I followed the collection of rings marked into the wood, glasses of wine or cups of coffee or both, and which fuelled the artist greater? There are burn marks, scorched black shapes that are hard to identify.
This is what the table seems to do more than anything, draw up these questions about Bacon and the life that he was leading, to seek a reason for each and every divot, scar and stain left on the table. Like the scorched mark in the wood, the ghost of Bacon lingers here; you see his actions and behaviours laid out over the years of abuse that this table received. I walk along the length of it, surveying its mass like the hull of a boat. How many years of wreckage has this object faced, only now to sit isolated in an art gallery, wood in concrete: an oak in the urban.
You look at the overwhelming chaos of Francis Bacon’s studio and you can clearly tell that he was a character of great magnitude. I feel crushed almost by the pure madness of it all and anxious and feel the hot flashes down my back and the cool breaths of sweat under my arms. The walls are sprayed with paint, all clashing colours, and brushes, canvases and other debris are just strewn about the place. There you can really see the person Bacon was, it is like a room wrecked rather than one gathered.
Yet I do find the quiet isolation of the table provides a more intimate look, a closer and more telling presentation of him. This, more so than the dramatic wildness of his studio, tells me that I am not quite so big a character. When I look at my table, though far younger than his, there are almost no signs that I was ever here. One coffee ring, a faint stain that I tried to rub off, maybe a little smudge of ink on the corner, that is all of the story that it tells.
It is a funny experience to leave a gallery having spent most of my time there looking at a table. A very rudimentary table at that, a simple hard table. I think though it is reflective of what I go looking for in art, it is a personal connection that I want, rather than an impressive demonstration of skill. I want to feel emotion and personality, and that is what I get from both the work of Francis Bacon himself, but also his table. Few exhibitions lend such an intimate look as the one on Bacon, and to stand right next to and scour something that was so regularly and closely used by him was a privilege, and an insight.
By Blaise Gilburd
