Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)Gilles Deleuze is one of France's most important philosophers, and in that role he has influenced many branches of the arts with his scholarly investigation of the subjects he chooses to investigate.
Deleuze here writes about the 'sensational' aspects of Francis Bacon's art, art which he knows well, living with several of Bacon's works in his home. His exploration of the inspiration of Bacon's various trademark strokes and subjects grows naturally out of his applying philosophical musings on visual subjects: this book is a thesis on aesthetics for which Bacon is simply but powerfully the nidus.
Though the book was written in 1981, it remains one of the more fascinating books on aesthetics and the influences on Bacon's work along with sidebars on music, film, and writing that make the work more of an informed 'novel' than simply the intellectual volume it is. For this reader the addition of more visuals would have made more of an impact, but the writing (or translation from the French!) is so seethingly seductive that soon the visuals would become secondary. This is a tough read but a most important one. Grady Harp, July 06
Click Here to see more reviews about: Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation (Athlone Contemporary European Thinkers)
Gilles Deleuze was one of the most influential and revolutionary philosophers of the 20th century. Francis Bacon is widely regarded as one of the most radical painters of the 20th century. This title presents a deep engagement with Bacon's work and the nature of art. Deleuze analyses the distinctive innovations that came to mark Bacon's style: the isolation of the figure, the violent deformations of the flesh, the complex use of colour, the method of chance, and the use of the triptych form. Along the way, Deleuze introduces a number of his own famous concepts, such as the "body without organs" and the "diagram", and contrasts his own approach to painting with that of both the phenomenological and the art historical traditions. Deleuze links Bacon's work to Cezanne's notion of a "logic" of sensation, which reaches its summit in colour and the "colouring sensation". Investigating this logic, Deleuze explores Bacon's crucial relation to past painters such as Velasquez, Cezanne and Soutine, as well as Bacon's rejection of expressionism and abstract painting.
