Love is the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon 1998 quotes

Daniel Farson

I'm Daniel Farson. Tonight, on Hungry Eye, it gives me great pleasure to welcome Britain's greatest living painter, Francis Bacon.

Francis Bacon

Good evening.

Daniel Farson

Francis Bacon, your work is known internationally as some of the most challenging and powerful of the post war years, you've resisted the abstract movements which have dominated those years and have championed the importance of the figure in modern art. Why is the figure so important to you?

Francis Bacon

Well, its difficult to describe really. One can only talk about one's instincts and avoid the rest.

Francis Bacon

I do it with a chance. Brush stroke, which locks the magic in place.

Francis Bacon

George has qualities. A combination of amorality and innocence. And note that I say innocence and not ignorance.
[pours champagne on Deakin's head]

Francis Bacon

Our time together has given me a whole new energy. Not just for the work, but moment's like these. You may well become a subject for a painting.

George Dyer

That would be fantastic. I always wanted a picture of me.

Francis Bacon

It's like the floor in the Japanese pot, that's what makes it so superb. There's no beauty without the wound. Lucifer was the most beautiful angel, that was his fatal flaw. Too much like their creator, darling. I just like to make one picture that would annihilate all the rest. A violent fusion or the past or the present. Concentrated into a single, raw sliced open nerve.

Isabel Rawsthorne

The portraiture of you're pain.

Francis Bacon

No. [laughs]

Isabel Rawsthorne

No. The tenderness is so visible in every brush stroke. The paintings of George are like exquisite love poems. That's the irony of the George pictures. I mean, you seem to put more into the work than into the relationship itself. And ultimately you suffer just as much.

Francis Bacon

Everybody, this is George. This is Muriel, Isabel, the beautiful Henrietta, and Deakin. Introduce yourselves. George is a little shy.

George Dyer

Hello...

John Deakin

So... who's Arthur and who's Martha?

Muriel Belcher

Oh, piss off, Deakin! I'm really sick of it!

John Deakin

I'll talk to you after you've had a shave...

Francis Bacon

Look, why don't you just go, George. I got to get on with this.

George Dyer

I'm going, I... I'm going. Anyway, when you gave me the keys, it was meant to mean I could live here.

Francis Bacon

What's past is past.

George Dyer

You call yesterday the past?

Francis Bacon

George, I am a painter! This is a studio! That is a painting! You are in the way!

George Dyer

But it's a painting of me! Or anyone would bloody well notice.

Francis Bacon

Oh, well thank you for the critique, George! I feel much better! Now I know where I stand! Now, after that enlightening discussion, will you just piss off!

George Dyer

You knew it was me, but you made me stand there in the pouring **** rain!

John Deakin

We've missed you, George. What have you been up to? Still posing?

George Dyer

Don't start on me, Deakin. I'm really not in the mood. You have no idea what goes on with me and Francis. You're the **** ponce, not me. At least I don't try to make a career out of someone else's life.

John Deakin

No good deed goes unpunished.

George Dyer

What about Paris?! Am I still coming?!

Francis Bacon

A man that killed the thing he loved and so he had to Dyer! Of course you're coming! You are the exhibition!

George Dyer

You actually make money out of painting?

Francis Bacon

Mmm.

George Dyer

Not something I ever really thought about. I mean, there were some pictures of my mum's but they weren't really for looking at, they were just... just sort of there.

Francis Bacon

Yes. That is interesting, George.

George Dyer

Nothing like your's, obviously.

Francis Bacon

Obviously.

John Deakin

I don't think you know me at all, Muriel.

Muriel Belcher

No, I don't give a ****, dear. You're a nasty little shit, Deakin. You're a waste of space and you bore me. Why don't you ponce somewhere else. This Hitler was more generous than you.

John Deakin

I drink for the thirst to come.

Francis Bacon

And who might you be? Well, you're not much of a burglar, are you?

Francis Bacon

Take your clothes off, come to bed... and you can have whatever you want.

Francis Bacon

A man being measured for a suit is not the similar to his being measured for the old wooden box.

George Dyer

It feels like a bloody coffin. It's **** hot in here, Francis.

Francis Bacon

Yes it is hot, George. Mr Dyer will arrange to collect the suit and I think we're going to have some shirts and some appropriate ties.

George Dyer

Hold on! Hold on! Don't go over board. I mean, I feel so...

Francis Bacon

So clothed?

George Dyer

You just don't care what people think, do you?

Francis Bacon

Come on, I want you to meet my friends. Now, we can have a drink. God knows I need one.

George Dyer

What? You're mates?

Francis Bacon

The Colony is a refuge for lost souls, no longer in possession of living bodies.

George Dyer

Can't we just go to the pub?

Francis Bacon

No.

Francis Bacon

I watch him while he's sleeping. A prisoner of dreams. Fighting the battle he's always going to lose. But I'm powerless to help him as I'm powerless to help myself. So I watch and wait.

Francis Bacon

Submitting entirely to the service and pleasure of the dominant partner. This I find a catharsis, in that all responsibility is relinquished, every move is dictated. No decisions are you're own, who exists solely for the service and pleasure of another man.