Francis Bacon in Your Blood Read Online Free PDF Page B

So far I’ve just managed to get some scraps of conversation together – short, individual statements that don’t really link up or create a coherent whole, even if I resort to putting lots of suspension points between them. On the other hand Bacon does tend to talk like that, in one-sentence definitions and clearly rehearsed phrases that sound like maxims (he’s a great admirer of La Rochefoucauld). He’s always repeating things, trying to make them more vivid and concise – ‘I like phrases that cut me,’ he says at one point – and I want to catch as much of the tone of his talk as possible, which is not easy and doesn’t sound the same or have the same impact once it’s been lifted out of the drink-drenched moment of its delivery.
    Before calling, I’d thought Francis would suggest we meet in a pub like the French or somewhere where there were other people around, as we have before. I certainly didn’t expect to be going to his studio in Reece Mews, which I imagine as a veryprivate, even secret place, like an alchemist’s or sorcerer’s cell. This intimidates me even more, so I carefully memorize a map of the area before setting off as if I might have to negotiate a complex labyrinth, but it turns out it’s only a short walk from the South Kensington tube and quite easy to find. You go up the Old Brompton Road, then right into a cobblestone mews, where the houses basically consist of big garages with living quarters perched on top. One of my Cambridge friends whose mother is an actress tells me that Lionel Bart – his musicals are always in the news – lives in one of them too. I suspect every house here belongs to someone famous and that I’ll recognize anyone who happens to walk past. At number 7 the battered old grey-blue door has been left open and the moment I go in Francis is standing at the top of a very steep flight of stairs, his arms opened out in welcome. It’s like going up a ship’s ladder, with a thick, greasy rope screwed to the wall to help you pull yourself up. As I get to the top I have a quick look into the studio itself because the paint-splattered door on the right hand of the landing is ajar. There’s a great big strew of photos and magazines and cloths and paintbrushes and pots right across the floor, with huge multi-coloured explosions of paint on the walls. There’s something frightening, even sinister, about it, but it also feels liberating, as if someone has managed to let loose all the chaos inside himself and live surrounded by it – recognizing it for what it is and channelling it into a specific purpose. I’m amazed and intrigued, as I sense my own confusion welling up in me and seeking a way out. It’s a very tantalizing sight, a glimpse of a kind of mad, secret, visual treasure chamber.
    But instead of going in, which I was hoping we would, we go to the little kitchen area, which has photos of recent paintings pinned up over the sink, and oddly the gas on the cooking range is on, perhaps to get the heating up, I’ve done that myself in various digs, though Bacon is wearing a thick, sky-blue cashmere sweater and a black leather blouson so he could hardly be cold, and then we go into the living room – an anonymous rectangularspace where there’s a deal table cluttered with books and letters, a dark-green velvet sofa, a big-bellied commode and at the far end a bed. The exotic-looking bedspread is about the only splash of colour in this very ordinary space with its rough grey floorboards made even greyer by the dull, wettish afternoon light filtering through the small windows. Francis turns on the lights – a couple of bright naked bulbs hanging from the ceiling – but the room looks quite as austere. He seems intent on talking to me about painting, especially about his own way of what he calls ‘trapping the image at its most living point’.