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Seeing the story of one’s time: appropriations from Nazi photography in the work of Francis Bacon

Hammer, Martin, Stephens, Chris (2009) Seeing the story of one’s time: appropriations from Nazi photography in the work of Francis Bacon. Visual Culture in Britain, 10 (3). pp. 315-351. ISSN 1471-4787. (doi:10.1080/14714780903263890) (The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided) (KAR id:61344)

The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided.
Official URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14714780903263890

Abstract

By analysing a wide range of specific examples, this article seeks to demonstrate that Nazi propaganda photographs were a recurrent point of reference and departure for many of the paintings Francis Bacon produced during the war years and then over the next decade and beyond. The authors consider how his appropriations and transformations of such political imagery intersected with his equally continuous allusions to themes from Christ's Passion and Greek Tragedy. The argument opens up fresh intellectual contexts for Bacon, and reinforces other kinds of evidence that in his art he was motivated to represent the psychological tenor of modern history, with its dialectic of ritual and violence, rather than a more universal notion of the human condition.

Item Type: Article
DOI/Identification number: 10.1080/14714780903263890
Subjects: N Visual Arts > N Visual arts (General). For photography, see TR
Divisions: Divisions > Division of Arts and Humanities > School of Arts
Depositing User: Martin Hammer
Date Deposited: 13 Apr 2017 12:43 UTC
Last Modified: 16 Nov 2021 10:24 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/61344 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

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