Who Concert = Art Lesson (for moi)

[glenn ramey]

We were watching the Encore series dvd from the Palm Desert, CA  show  
the other
night when 'Purple Dress' came on and it all came back to me......

Hailing from MD, this show had been the climax of one of those crazy 
(?) road trips
I sometimes(less frequently it seems these days) take to catch a Who  
concert.
We traveled 5,000 miles and 6 time zones in 46 hours to 'do' this  
show and make
it back for work on Monday morning...and threw in 2 trips to Joshua  
Tree Nat'l
Park as well..all in a weekend's fun don't you know !!    C'mon along  
for the ride.... if
you dare.....

Anyway, during the show..as they started playing Man In a Purple  
Dress,  my oh so
trusty sidekick Adrienne, with a fascination for all things artsy and  
freaky, not to
mention several years of college and grad school studying  
them...tugged my
shirt sleeve a bit and shouted.....

  "That's a Francis Bacon !!!!"

"Huh?" i replied..

"The painting on the screens is a Francis Bacon!!' she cried again.

"Well...my god" i thought(not really) "That's wonderful......for....  
Francis Bacon".

Ok..i  had no idea who Francis Bacon was  at that point but i did manage
to settle her down enough to enjoy the remainder of the show.... and for
those of you out there who are already well aware of the good man  
Bacon's
paintings.,..I apologize and I really hope I get this stuff right......


Anyway....here's a link to the image the band is apparently using as  
a backdrop
during Purple Dress, albeit with what looks like heightened/increased  
contrast to my eyes when
i compare it to the dvd image....

> http://www.goossun.com/HeadVI.jpg

Bacon apparently painted several of these 'head' images..... as part  
of a series of work he did
based on a much older painting of a Pope from the 17th century. 
(details below)

and from the "what does it all mean?" department  .....part of  one  
person's interpretation..... which i found useful....
(see: http://www.jameshymanfineart.com/pages/archive/information/ 
510.html)

> In November 1949 the Hanover Gallery staged the first one-person  
> exhibition of Francis Bacon. One of the seminal events in post war  
> British culture, this exhibition was a revelation. The exhibition  
> included full-length figures as well as a series of tormented heads  
> which culminated in one of Bacon’s most celebrated and confident  
> early paintings, Head VI (1949). A half-length portrait, this was  
> the first painting in what became the most celebrated series of  
> paintings Bacon ever produced: a series showing a boxed, screaming  
> Pope that established Bacon’s international reputation. Bacon  
> developed this theme during the early 1950s in epic paintings,  
> which although finished were entitled ‘studies’ by the artist,  
> which took as a starting point Velazquez’s Portrait of Pope  
> Innocent X. Bacon’s Pope, enthroned and enclosed by a box, drew  
> attention to the discrepancy between the belief systems present at  
> the time of Velasquez and the contemporary discrediting of  
> authority. They gained potency through the publication of  
> photographs showing the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals,  
> boxed behind glass for their own protection.
>
> Most crucially, Bacon’s veiling of his imagery led to a fundamental  
> misidentification of his subjects. Paradoxically, although the  
> origins of Bacon’s vision lay with paintings of oppressors,  
> including Nazi leaders, the subsequent status of these paintings  
> was dependent on reading these tormented individuals as Everyman  
> figures that represent ourselves: a conflation of oppressor and  
> victim.

If you visit the following site you will see the original painting  
Diego Velasquez did (of Pope Innocent X) 300 years
earlier that was the inspiration for Bacon.  And, if you pass your  
cursor over the painting you will see the image Bacon created;
super-imposed....its kind of... spooky.   It was one of the partial  
works for this image that is the head shot above that Pete chose to help
convey his feelings for Man in a Purple Dress via the concert  
projection screens.  Whether Pete's opinion of
Bacon's work jibes with the opinion I quoted above..well...god only  
knows...(pun only slightly intended).   I 've always
had trouble keeping up with pete's ever evolving 'explanations'....  
over the years     ;)

> http://www.geocities.com/pantherprousa/bacon/bacon_influences.html

Enjoy!?


Glenn