BY CHANCE NOT DESIGN - FRANCIS BACON

In an early Southbank Show an inebriated Francis Bacon spoke to an equally inebriated Melvyn Bragg about his life and work as an artist. The ex interior designer and self self-taught artist, said to be one of the world's greatest modern painters. When asked how he came to paint on the wrong side of the canvas, used medical books, wrestling photographs, Muybridge experiments of movement etc, Bacon spoke thus:

Bacon: I lost all my money in Monte Carlo and I had used up all my canvanses so the only way to paint was to reverse the canvas and paint there. And, you know, I liked it. Much better than the traditional side. I like the way the paint soaked in. It was quite by chance. And so I started to work this way all the time"

On conscious intellect v the unconscious. Bacon came out firmly in favor of the unconscious. "Why?" asked Bragg. "Because I've made images the conscious mind could never make!"

In 'Painting 1946' Bacon tried to paint a bird falling from the sky into a field of grass, but then something else began to appear. A man, face obscured by an umbrella sitting down and a huge carcass of meat stretched behind him like a butcher's shop.

Bacon, clearly fired up by subject matter and booze ranted on a bit: It happened to come about (Chance). It happened to evolve. How it happens I don't know.

When asked about the 'randomness' of things and the oblique contrast between the existential intensity counterpointed by his own description of himself as a very optimistic person Bacon answered: "What is life but sensation, what happens at the moment?'

Bragg asked about Bacon's strange definition of optimism "What it is exactly, given that life to you has no meaning, what is it you're optimistic about?" Bacon replied "I'm optimistic about nothing. Absolutely nothing."