Comparative Research on Pictorial Language in the Figure Paintings of Francis Bacon and Marlene Dumas

Liu  Jiaming; Krisana  Chueachainat

ผู้แต่ง

Liu Jiaming Academy of Arts and Philosophy, Shinawatra University, Thailand.
Krisana Chueachainat2 Academy of Arts and Philosophy, Shinawatra University, Thailand.

คำสำคัญ:

Francis Bacon, Marlene Dumas, Pictorial Language, Figure Painting, Formal Analysis, Comparative Art Studies

บทคัดย่อ

The study aims to (1) analyse the pictorial language of each artist, (2) identify their similarities and differences, (3) examine the relationship between pictorial language, cultural context, and identity, and (4) consider implications for contemporary figure painting. An interpretivist qualitative research design was adopted using a multiple-case comparative approach. The study population comprised the figure paintings of Bacon and Dumas, from which representative works were purposively selected as the analytical sample. Data were collected through visual analysis of the selected artworks and supported by the artists’ statements and relevant scholarly literature. A six-dimensional analytical framework—line, colour, form, space, brushwork and texture, and composition—was employed, integrating formal, iconological, and comparative analysis.

The findings reveal two distinct modes of pictorial transformation, conceptualised as Bacon’s “deconstructive” approach and Dumas’s “translative” approach. Bacon’s pictorial language is characterised by geometric framing, dissolved contours, bodily distortion, and enclosed spatial structures, producing an existentialist aesthetic. In contrast, Dumas employs concealed line, subjectivised colour, fluid forms, and open space to construct an identity-oriented aesthetic. Despite their differences, both artists move beyond realism, draw on photographic sources, and negotiate the boundary between figuration and abstraction. The study further indicates that their divergent approaches are shaped by distinct cultural contexts and demonstrate how painterly transformation remains significant in an era increasingly dominated by photographic and AI-generated imagery.

เอกสารอ้างอิง

Arya, R. (2017a). Frames of meaning: The space-frame in Bacon. Interiors: Design/Architecture/Culture, 8(3), 73–85.

Arya, R. (2017b). The animal surfaces: The gaping mouth in Francis Bacon's work. Visual Anthropology, 30(4), 328–343.

Barroso, P. (2023). Painting sensations: Unveiling the visual rhetoric of pathos in Bacon's images through the lens of Deleuze's transcendental empiricism. Interações: Sociedade e as Novas Modernidades, (45), 116–129.

Battelli, E. B. (2023). Per una genealogia delle immagini Francis Bacon-Bill Viola-Marlene Dumas (Unpublished master's thesis). Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, Venice, Italy.

Bhabha, H. K. (1994). The location of culture. London, England: Routledge.

Bloemheuvel, M., & Mot, J.-H. (1995). The particularity of being human. In Marlene Dumas, Francis Bacon [Exhibition catalogue] (pp. 19–35). Milan, Italy: Charta.

Bois, Y.-A., & Krauss, R. E. (1997). Formless: A user's guide. New York, NY: Zone Books.

Campany, D. (2020). On photographs. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Chau, H. Y. (2019). The contemporary relevance of split portraiture: Rereading Marlene Dumas and Francis Bacon (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Reading, Reading, England.

Coelewij, L., Sainsbury, H., & Vischer, T. (Eds.). (2014). Marlene Dumas: The image as burden. London, England: Tate Publishing.

Crous, M. (2013). Marlene Dumas and the painting of (the) flesh. South African Journal of Art History, 28(2), 47–56.

Crowther, P. (2009). Phenomenology of the visual arts (even the frame). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

De Corte, H. (2021). Woven under glass: Francis Bacon's linen and the queerness of his materials. TEXTILE: Cloth and Culture, 19(2), 191–222.

Deleuze, G. (2003). Francis Bacon: The logic of sensation (D. W. Smith, Trans.). London, England: Continuum. (Original work published 1981)

Fernández, M. I. A. (2022). Technique in contemporary painting. ¿A gender issue? Barcelona Research Art Creation, 10(3), 157–182.

Finke, M. (2009). 'I don't find it at all violent myself': Bacon's material practice and the human body. In Francis Bacon: A terrible beauty (pp. 122–133). Göttingen, Germany: Steidl.

Garb, T. (2020). Painting/politics/photography: Marlene Dumas, Mme Lumumba and the image of the African woman. Art History, 43(3), 588–611.

Harrison, M. (Ed.). (2016). Francis Bacon: Catalogue raisonné (Vols. 1–5). London, England: The Estate of Francis Bacon.

Hulks, D. (2010). Francis Bacon and the geometry of fear. Sculpture Journal, 19(1), 79–90.

Johnson, G. A. (Ed.). (1993). The Merleau-Ponty aesthetics reader: Philosophy and painting. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.

Kristeva, J. (1982). Powers of horror: An essay on abjection (L. S. Roudiez, Trans.). New York, NY: Columbia University Press. (Original work published 1980)

Lange-Berndt, P. (Ed.). (2015). Materiality. London, England: Whitechapel Gallery.

Lelik, T. A. (2017). To model or not to model: Transgressive portraits of Mary Magdalene by Marlene Dumas. Journal of the LUCAS Graduate Conference, 5, 63–85.

Lelik, T. A. (2019). Blurred boundaries: Francis Bacon's portraits. World Literature Studies, 11(4), 84–96.

Lelik, T. A. (2020). Representations of irrepresentability: The painted portrait in the twentieth-century in the works of Edvard Munch, Francis Bacon, and Marlene Dumas (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Universiteit van Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Moldovan, S., & Palamar, I. (2024). Distortions in contemporary art (painting). Journal of Research & Innovation for Sustainable Society, 6(1), 111–116.

Mulvey, L. (1975). Visual pleasure and narrative cinema. Screen, 16(3), 6–18.

Munro, S. (2025). Entanglements in painting: Tracing embodied cognition, diffraction and iteration in the painting process. Journal of Visual Art Practice, 24(1-2), 171–197.

Özcan, Ç. D. (2024). Marlene Dumas resimlerinde siyasi bir tema olarak portre. Uluslararası Anadolu Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi, 8(4), 890–899.

Panofsky, E. (1939). Studies in iconology: Humanistic themes in the art of the Renaissance. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Peppiatt, M. (1996). Francis Bacon: Anatomy of an enigma. London, England: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.

Schwabsky, B. (2019). The observer effect: On contemporary painting. Berlin, Germany: Sternberg Press.

Sullivan, K. (2009). The languages of art: How representational and abstract painters conceptualize their work in terms of language. Poetics Today, 30(3), 517–560.

Sylvester, D. (1987). The brutality of fact: Interviews with Francis Bacon (3rd ed.). London, England: Thames and Hudson.

Wölfflin, H. (1950). Principles of art history: The problem of the development of style in later art (M. D. Hottinger, Trans.). New York, NY: Dover Publications.