How Does Francis Bacon Create His Art? A Guide to Francis Bacon’s Techniques

Oil on Canvas

Bacon primarily painted in oils, a traditional medium that he bent to his will with extraordinary intensity. Using oil on canvas allowed him to build up thick layers of paint, which he manipulated to create dense, unsettling textures. His approach to painting was often erratic, spontaneous, and instinctual. Bacon worked chaotically, not aiming for precision but for raw energy. He applied the paint using stiff brushes, palette knives, and even rags, which gave his canvases an abrasive, aggressive quality.

His paintings were not about the beauty of paint smoothly applied; rather, they were about the inherent tension between different textures. Some areas would be smoothly painted, while others were rough and heavily worked, creating a striking contrast. This allowed him to juxtapose moments of calm with bursts of violence, capturing the intensity of human emotion. Bacon admired old masters like Diego Velázquez and Rembrandt for their mastery of oil paint and its texture, but he took this tradition and pushed it into more chaotic and disturbing territory.

Oil paint, with its rich texture and versatility, is particularly suited to capturing the tactile essence of flesh, especially in the depiction of meat. This quality is exemplified in Rembrandt’s Slaughtered Ox, where thick, loose brushstrokes evoke a visceral, fleshy quality, rendering the sensation of raw meat with a technique that anticipated the work of later Post-Impressionists. Rembrandt’s visible, unblended brushwork in this painting is a deliberate choice—he allows the paint to be the image. The texture and suppleness of the oil convey the sensation of flesh in a way that photography, even with its precision, could never fully achieve.

This ability to blend the image with the physical properties of paint was highly appealing to Bacon, especially in an era when photography had largely overtaken the illustrative role of painting. Bacon admired artists who mastered this unique characteristic of oil paint and their ability to convey form and emotion through their brushstrokes. Bacon saw this technique as critical to creating a “complete interlocking of image and paint”, where the paint itself becomes inseparable from the form it depicts. In his essay on Matthew Smith, Bacon wrote about this fusion of technique and image, emphasising how each movement of the brush reshapes and deepens the meaning of the painting.

Manipulating the Human Figure

Bacon’s work is synonymous with distortion and abstraction, particularly in his treatment of the human figure. He was fascinated by the fragility of the body and often depicted it as if in a state of disintegration or transformation. His figures are not stable but blurred, twisted, and violently contorted, suggesting both physical and psychological trauma. These grotesque figures express an intense exploration of mortality, flesh, and decay, influenced by his experience of war and his bleak view of humanity.

Bacon would typically start with a fairly realistic depiction of a figure but then distort it, either by wiping away parts of the paint with a rag or physically manipulating the paint while still wet. This would create an unsettling sense of motion, as though the figures were caught in a moment of transformation or destruction. His work with the human form drew on traditions from the Renaissance, but where artists like Michelangelo depicted idealised, heroic figures, Bacon’s subjects were often brutalised and deformed, as if caught in a painful, unending metamorphosis.

Figures in Isolation

A recurring motif in Bacon's work is the isolation of his figures in stark, geometric spaces. He often placed his distorted subjects within cage-like structures or boxed them into confined spaces, which emphasised their sense of alienation and entrapment. This technique, known as ‘spaceframes’, became a signature of his work and added to the claustrophobic, existential dread of his paintings. These geometric enclosures symbolised both physical and psychological imprisonment, forcing viewers to confront the anguish of the figures within.

Bacon's Exploration of Printmaking

Bacon's approach to printmaking was deeply intertwined with his painting techniques, emphasising texture, distortion, and emotional intensity. Though he primarily focused on painting, Bacon's prints retained the raw power and immediacy of his canvases. He often worked with master printmakers, using methods like lithography and etching to translate his visceral, distorted figures into prints. Bacon’s prints, like his paintings, explored the tension between figuration and abstraction, using bold lines and rich tonal contrasts to create haunting, dynamic images. His prints were not mere reproductions, but standalone works that captured the violent energy and psychological depth characteristic of his art.

Influence of Photography

Photography was central to Bacon’s creative process, as he often worked from photos rather than live models. He kept an extensive and disorganised archive of reference materials, including crime scene photos, medical textbooks, and images torn from magazines. Many of these images were distorted, crumpled, or stained with paint, reflecting Bacon’s interest in reworking and transforming mundane imagery into something charged with existential meaning.

He was particularly influenced by Muybridge's photographic studies of motion, which captured the human body in various stages of movement. These sequential images inspired the dynamic, distorted figures that populate Bacon’s paintings, as they freeze the body in moments of flux, decay, and violence.

Repetitive Imagery

Bacon frequently reused the same photographic references across multiple works, obsessively revisiting certain images. One famous example is his series of Pope paintings, which were all based on Velázquez’s Portrait of Pope Innocent X. Bacon distorted this portrait into a grotesque figure, screaming and trapped within a cage, turning a symbol of religious authority into one of existential terror.

A Chaotic Studio

Bacon’s studio at 7 Reece Mews in London was legendary for its chaos. The space was overflowing with torn photographs, paint splatters, books, and discarded materials. This chaotic environment mirrored his working method, in which disorder and spontaneity were crucial to the creative process. His studio was not just a workspace, but a reflection of the turmoil and intensity that informed his art. Today, the studio has been reconstructed at the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin, offering a glimpse into the mind of the artist.

Despite the apparent disorder, Bacon had a methodical approach to certain aspects of his process. He meticulously prepared his canvases by priming them with white paint, allowing his oil colours to stand out more vividly. While his working environment was chaotic, his technique involved a careful balance between control and spontaneity.

Bacon’s art remains a powerful exploration of the human condition, rendered through a blend of chaotic and controlled techniques. His spontaneous approach to oil painting, distortion and photographic references, all contributed to the visceral intensity of his work. Bacon’s art does not merely represent life; it confronts its darkest, most primal aspects, offering an unsettling reflection on the human experience. Bacon's legacy endures as one of psychological realism, capturing the instability, fragility, and violence of human existence in ways that continue to resonate with contemporary artists. His work remains an uncompromising exploration of beauty and torment, pushing the boundaries of what art can communicate about the depths of human emotion.