We just got home from the Francis Bacon special exhibit at The Met which just opened this week. Do NOT miss this one. It is a great colelction of works spanning his entire career.
Bacon is easily one of my top favorite artists of all time as well as a huge influence on the direction my art eventually took. I had been painting cutesy cute until I realized that my personal visual pleasure came from the grotesque. And eventually I found the happy medium between cute and grotesque = natty art. You can see Bacon's influence on my art especially in my piece, Pope Something Something IV. Sure, I painted it around the time the current Pope was being elected. But I definitely had Bacon's paintings after Velázquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X in mind as well.
Valazquez's, Bacon's, and mine....
The Bacon exhibit at the Met is up through the Summer until mid August. Be sure to check it out.
While we were at the Met, we also lurked around in my favorite section -- the African / Pacific Islander area. I am forever fascinated by these pieces. So creepily cute and weird... They often remind me of Tim Burton creations. I should probably do some more reading into the Pacific Islander stuff because I know how much more I enjoy the arts of Africa having taken a whole semester of study into these pieces during undergrad. They are cool enough visually to look at, but so much more fascinating to me just knowing the uses behind the masks and statues.
Also while there, we adventured through the medieval and religious based older paintings. Absolutely fantastic stuff. And which today was reminding me of one of my favorite books when I was a (little bit twisted) little kid:
Master Snickup's Cloak illustrated by the awesome Brian Froud.
