Karla Burns

I have only just returned from a weekend in Dublin City, where I took an extreme dash around the city attempting to go to as many galleries and exhibitions as possible, although I failed at finding some I really wanted to go to due to my awful sense of direction and my lack of knowledge of Dublin. I managed to get to Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane, The National Gallery of Ireland, The National Museum of Ireland – Decorative Arts & History and I got lost on the way to The Museum of Modern Art and never got to go, but the streets of Dublin are lined with galleries!

I was stunned by the immense catalogue of World Famous artists, each museum I shrieked at the art I had stared at for years in books, was now right in front of me. I saw a little bit of Monet, Manet, Renior, Goya, Degas (paintings and sculptures), Gris, Piccasso, and to my immense shock and excitement I even saw Caravaggio’s ‘The Taking of Christ’ which is absolutely breath taking. I have been to the Louvre, the D’Orsay, the Metropolitan NYC, but Dublin is definitely on power with the greats.

Although all this art was exciting the best part of the weekend was going to the Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane. It is currently holding the ‘Francis Bacon- A Terrible Beauty’ exhibition. Out of all the exhibitions I have ever attended this is definitely the best. It is room after room, floor after floor of information, quotes and works of the extremely talented Dublin born Painter Francis Bacon. Even the Graphic Design and wayfinding of the exhibition were breath taking. Unfortunately, you were not allowed to take photographs in any of the galleries, even phones were prohibited, so I could not photograph any of the exhibitions.

The exhibition started with a video presentation of Francis Bacon back in the 90′s in his studio in London, in which he talks about his work ethos and background. He explained how he had never went to art school as he did not want to be told how to draw or paint, he did not want to be forced to mimic the work of any other painter. He chose to teach himself and learn through trail and error, so that he found and carved his own style influenced only by himself, and I think this attitude is what made him a great. The video is facinating, it shows how he liked to work in chaos, his studio was incredibly messy and that is how he liked it, he used the doors and walls of his studio as palettes to mix colours. He also exclaimed how he never sketched before paintings as he felt that once he started the painting he would then only be ‘illustrating a drawing’, which is a beautiful way of thinking.

The video also let you delve deeper into Bacon’s thinking and also showed how unique he was. He exclaimed he always used the wrong side of the canvas, he would turn his canvas around and paint on the unprimed side as it took the paint better and if he made a mistake he would be unable to fix it, he would just go with his brush strokes. He exclaimed how he wanted each brush stroke on the canvas to be like the first, to stand out, and he likened this to painting a wall, how important the first stroke is to the finished product. He exclaimed too that if his brush strokes took him in the wrong direction instead of carrying on and trying to fix the error he would destroy the painting. In one room of the exhibition the walls are lined with paintings that Bacon destroyed, which is probably the most fascinating part of the exhibition. Large canvas line the wall, with large chunks cut out of them, and slits down them created my frantic knife slashes. You really feel like you get into his way of thinking. It is also nice to see the vulnerable side of the artist, in galleries you never see the artists faults or failures just their great pieces of work, you take it for granted you don’t see the numerous pieces that had to fail to get to that point and I think that is why this exhibition is so successful it shows the human side to Bacon, it grounds him, makes him more approachable and easier to embrace, you can relate to him.

The exhibition, is bursting with photographs Bacon used, pages he ripped from books to use as reference (later in his career he preferred to paint from photos than live models), his sketchbooks, notes, paintings, doodles. Everything the gallery could salvage from his studio that showed a personal insight into the life of this artist. The most breath taking part of this exhibition is in the second room. They took his studio from London and recreated it in a huge glass box; walls, ceiling, floors and contents, all arranged to how it was when Bacon worked in it, I could have stared at it all day, it was amazing. Along with his actual studio are photographs of the ajoining two rooms, which housed his kitchen and bathroom which were in one room, and his bedroom and living room which were one room. It was a bizarre living arrangement, but what was odd, was the polar opposite of these two rooms compared to his studio. The studio was a chaotic mess, but his living quarters were absolutely spotless, not a thing out of place, every item had its space, straight and tidy, this was a huge insight into his private life. I don’t want to ruin the exhibition so I will stop there. At the exhibition I bought the book cataloguing it and its contents, it is gorgeous book, beautifully designed from front to back and it is a must to buy in the gift shop and is a steal at only 18 euros! It is a huge book and it is bursting with facts, quotes, paintings (even those he destroyed), his notes, doodles and pages from his sketchbooks!

This is an exhibition not to be missed I could talk about it all day. It runs until the 7th of March, here are the directions and opening times from the flyer: