Francis Bacon's Portraits

[Light-of-Truth]

I don't know that Pierre Girieud will ultimately be a Baconian treasure, but I will say that Bacon appears to introduce us. he knew how to paint Bacon at least.

http://www.pierregirieud.fr/index_gb.php#

Interesting artist. He has an eye for beauty for certain, and to me appears well versed in the ancients.

http://www.pierregirieud.fr/f_rech_fresque.php?page=

Art Plastique and Art Dramatique

Les Sciences

EDIT:

Lots of images on this page below. I suspect only Yann could see anything important. I'm enjoying looking though...

http://www.pierregirieud.fr/f_rech_compo.php?page=

 

Edited December 21, 2022 by Light-of-Truth

[Allisnum2er]

1 hour ago, Light-of-Truth said:

Curious what he is saying as it is in French:

https://fondation.univ-poitiers.fr/accueil/nos-actions/presence-territoriale-et-internationale/a-la-recherche-des-peintures-disparues-de-pierre-girieud/

 

Hi Rob, this page relates the history of the paintings that I shared with you briefly earlier and talks about 9 paintings that are still missing.

Indeed, in 1930 the University of Poitiers commissioned an ensemble from Pierre Girieud, comprising fifteen paintings intended to adorn the Council Chamber of the University at the Faculty of Law:

- Five large panels: one entitled "To the glory of the University of Poitiers", built in triptych, and four representing the historical disciplines of the University (Law, Letters, Medicine and Sciences)
- Two small monochrome canvases that accompany the monument to the dead of the First World War created by the Martel Brothers: "La France Douloureuse" and "La France Glorieuse"
- Eight paintings, installed in the recesses between each window, representing naked figures which symbolize the "Pedagogical Virtues": Vocation, Self-denial, Faith, Invention, Experience, Meditation, Truth and Study .

The original paintings of "La France Douloureuse" and "La France Glorieuse", as well as seven of the eight "Pedagogical Virtues" are still missing.

 

[Allisnum2er]

2 hours ago, Light-of-Truth said:

 

Hi Rob,

Once again, this is just a thought and I don't know if it was really intended by Pierre Girieud, but you can see, on the left of the painting, that the Cat is playing with a Sole.

The Sole reminds me the famous stylized LetterS that is found in Francis Bacon's Essays (1625)

SOLE/SOUL

And I wonder if the Franciscan monk could be Roger Bacon.

I know ... I have a great imagination ! 😄

Edited December 22, 2022 by Allisnum2er

[Light-of-Truth]

I love it!

And happy SOLstice! 🙂

[Eric Roberts]

3 hours ago, Allisnum2er said:

Hi Rob,

Once again, this is just a thought and I don't know if it was really intended by Pierre Girieud, but you can see, on the left of the painting, that the Cat is playing with a Sole.

The Sole reminds me the famous stylized LetterS that is found in Francis Bacon's Essays (1625)

SOLE/SOUL

And I wonder if the Franciscan monk could be Roger Bacon.

I know ... I have a great imagination ! 😄

[Eric Roberts]

https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/bacon-bacon-shakespeare-spy_

Bacon Bacon Shakespeare Spy

One brilliant madwoman’s quest to show that the Bard’s works were secretly penned by the father of science, at war with his own creation

Sam Kahn

I'd not heard of The New Atlantis journal before coming across this article today. (The site seems to have little to do with Francis Bacon, yet they have no hesitation in appropriating the title of his famous Rosicrucian novel.) I was drawn in by the author's sympathetic account of Delia Bacon's crusade, even though he takes a conventional stand on the authorship question. Reading down the page I came to this illustration.

The picture's proper title is "Portrait of a Young Man". It's in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston - not New York Public Library. Painted by Domenico Tintoretto (son of the renowned Venetian master, Jacopo Tintoretto) between 1580-1585, the picture didn't arrive in England until the early-19th century. So it cannot possibly be a portrait of the young Francis Bacon... unless, as has been suggested by a number of Baconians, he was travelling in Italy and elsewhere on the Continent during the early 1580s, and sat for Domenico Tintoretto in Venice. So it's just possible, but much more likely to be a young Italian nobleman. I'm not sure how the tenuous association of this picture with Francis Bacon began.

https://collections.mfa.org/objects/32299

 

Edited August 14 by Eric Roberts

[Eric Roberts]

You think you know a painting, having looked at it umpteen times, but as I was looking through the National Portrait Gallery's portraits of Francis Bacon I came across Henry Bone's plan for a copy of Paul van Somer's full-length portrait as Lord Chancellor of England in 1618. The drawing is undated, presumed to have been made sometime "before 1815", when Bone visited Gorhambury. Although the NPG attribute the work as "after Unknown artist", Henry Bone himself has written at the bottom of the page: The Lord Chancellor Bacon after the original by Vansommer in the collection of Lord Verulam. Signed "B".

Although I'd seen this scaled drawing before, I'd not paid attention to the detail of the robe Bacon is wearing. Why did Bone embellish the black robe we see in Van Somer's painting with stylised organic forms?

Had Henry taken too much laudanum that morning? What's with all the floral embroidery? But as we can see from Bone's beautiful enamel reduced copy of the Gorhambury Van Somer painting, it's obvious that he was a highly trained professional copyist. He would have only recorded what he could see. Imagination was not involved.

http://historicalportraits.com/Gallery.asp?Page=Item&ItemID=853&Desc=Sir-Francis-Bacon-|-Henry-Bone

If we take a closer look at the Van Somer portrait, it's just possible to make out black on black designs which correspond to Henry Bone's notes. I had no idea that the black robe was so ornately decorated with a 'jungle' of leaves and flowers of all kinds. It would be so wonderful if Francis Bacon's Chancellor's robe had survived and we could see it first-hand in the British Museum.

http://historicalportraits.com/Gallery.asp?Page=Item&ItemID=853&Desc=Sir-Francis-Bacon-|-Henry-Bone

https://sirbacon.org/francis-bacons-portraits-from-life/#!enviragallery4980-5231

 

 

I would assume that his robe was made for him to his specifications, in which case, the choice of an almost subliminal design which is both concealed and revealed is appropriate.

 

Edited September 16 by Eric Roberts

[Eric Roberts]

46 minutes ago, Eric Roberts said:

You think you know a painting, having looked at it umpteen times, but as I was looking through the National Portrait Gallery's portraits of Francis Bacon I came across Henry Bone's plan for a copy of Paul van Somer's full-length portrait as Lord Chancellor of England in 1618. The drawing is undated, presumed to have been made sometime "before 1815", when Bone visited Gorhambury. Although the NPG attribute the work as "after Unknown artist", Henry Bone himself has written at the bottom of the page: The Lord Chancellor Bacon after the original by Vansommer in the collection of Lord Verulam. Signed "B".

Although I'd seen this scaled drawing before, I'd not paid attention to the detail of the robe Bacon is wearing. Why did Bone embellish the black robe we see in Van Somer's painting with stylised organic forms?

Had Henry taken too much laudanum that morning? What's with all the floral embroidery? But as we can see from Bone's beautiful enamel reduced copy of the Gorhambury Van Somer painting, it's obvious that he was a highly trained professional copyist. He would have only recorded what he could see. Imagination was not involved.

http://historicalportraits.com/Gallery.asp?Page=Item&ItemID=853&Desc=Sir-Francis-Bacon-|-Henry-Bone

If we take a closer look at the Van Somer portrait, it's just possible to make out black on black designs which correspond to Henry Bone's notes. I had no idea that the black robe was so ornately decorated with leaves of all kinds. It would be so wonderful if Francis Bacon's Chancellor's robe had survived and we could see it first-hand in the British Museum.

http://historicalportraits.com/Gallery.asp?Page=Item&ItemID=853&Desc=Sir-Francis-Bacon-|-Henry-Bone

https://sirbacon.org/francis-bacons-portraits-from-life/#!enviragallery4980-5231

 

 

I would assume that his robe was made for him to his specifications, in which case, the choice of an almost subliminal design which both concealed and revealed is appropriate.

 

 

Courtesy of Philip Mould Gallery website: Enamel portrait of Sir Francis Bacon by Henry Bone c.1815

 

[Light-of-Truth]

On 8/14/2023 at 7:28 AM, Eric Roberts said:

and sat for Domenico Tintoretto in Venice.

I see the sorrow of a late teen Bacon who was living an identity nightmare, "Who is my Mother, and my Father?? If this is a painting of Bacon it captures what so many of us go through in life and that emotion was meant to be known.

[Light-of-Truth]

Little Photoshop work:

EDIT: Anyone want to do some geometrical analysis should start with this image, right?

[Eric Roberts]

1 hour ago, Light-of-Truth said:

I see the sorrow of a late teen Bacon who was living an identity nightmare, "Who is my Mother, and my Father?? If this is a painting of Bacon it captures what so many of us go through in life and that emotion was meant to be known.

The young man in the portrait looks to me to be still in his teens. Bacon was in his early twenties when, as has been suggested, he travelled incognito on the Continent in the early 1580s. Wrong mouth. You're right though L-o-T, it could be the cover of a book on adolescence and anxiety.

[Eric Roberts]

1 hour ago, Light-of-Truth said:

Little Photoshop work:

EDIT: Anyone want to do some geometrical analysis should start with this image, right?

Nice job, Rob. Much clearer now.

[Light-of-Truth]

9 minutes ago, Eric Roberts said:

Wrong mouth.

That was my first thought. Then I looked at the emotion and Bacon fit to me, at least this past week or so. 😉

Bacon would have looked much older in his twenties. And he would have learned how to hide his pain by then. It would take quite the artist to Pierce that Veil.