Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban PC KCwas an English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, orator, and author. He served both as Attorney General and as Lord Chancellor of England. After his death, he remained extremely influential through his works, especially as philosophical advocate and practitioner of the scientific method during the scientific revolution...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth21 January 1561
luck intuition stuff
Painting today is pure intuition and luck and taking advantage of what happens when you splash the stuff down.
painting select preserves
All painting is an accident. But it's also not an accident, because one must select what part of the accident one chooses to preserve.
paint mediums knows
It's such an extraordinary supple medium that you never do quite know what paint will do.
regret paint starting
I regret not starting to paint earlier...It is one of the few things I do regret.
paint ifs
If you can talk about it, why paint it?
ideas photograph triggers
Photographs are not only points of reference... they're often triggers of ideas.
return looks painting
If I go to the National Gallery and I look at one of the great paintings that excite me there, it's not so much the painting that excites me as that the painting unlocks all kinds of valves of sensation within me which return me to life more violently.
thinking trying quality
I think I tend to destroy the better paintings, or those that have been better to a certain extent. I try and take them further, and they lose all their qualities, and they lose everything. I think I would say that I destroy all the better paintings.
i-like-you sunset glitter
I like, you may say, the glitter and colour that comes from the mouth, and I've always hoped in a sense to be able to paint the mouth like Monet painted a sunset.
men unity church
Nothing doth so much keep men out of the Church, and drive men out of the Church, as breach of unity.
death fear believe
I do not believe that any man fears to be dead, but only the stroke of death.
communication doe hopeless
It's always hopeless to talk about painting - one never does anything but talk around it.
deception done want
If you want to convey fact, this can only ever be done through a form of distortion. You must distort to transform what is called appearance into image.
thinking artist expression
Very few people have a natural feeling for painting, and so, of course, they naturally think that painting is an expression of the artist's mood. But it rarely is. Very often he may be in greatest despair and be painting his happiest paintings.