Description
The two figures are positioned in the center foreground of the canvas. Although both are mutilated and covered in blood, their physical discomfort is contrasted against a tranquil and flat, warm background typical of Bacon's work from this period. The figures exhibit many elements typical of Bacon's early work, most noticeably the expressive broad strokes, which are set in contrast against the tightness of the flat, unmemorable, background. The painting contains the same white angular rails Bacon had inserted into the mid-ground of his 1949 Head II and Head IV, as well as the Study for Portrait of the same year. In Fragment..., the rails are positioned just below the area where the horizontal and vertical bars of the cross intersect. The rail begins with a diagonal line which intersects the owl at what appears to be the creature's shoulder.
A horizontal angular geometrical shape is sketched in white and grey in the mid-ground, and represents an early form of a spatial device Bacon was to develop and perfect over the course of the 1950s, when it effectively became a cage used to frame the anguished figures portrayed in Bacon's foregrounds. The body of the fleshy part-bird chimera is rendered with light paint, and from it hang narrow red drips of paint, indicating the drips and spatter of blood. Pentimenti is used to convey the blood of the death throes the figures have brought to each other. The link with the biblical Crucifixion is made through the raised arms of the lower creature and the T shaped cross. While the upper creature is obviously modelled on a dog, it seems likely that the chimera is based on pictures of bats Bacon kept in his private collection of images. The lower figure's human aspect is seen most notably in the details of its mouth and genitalia.
In the mid-ground, the artist has sketched a street scene, which features a number of walking figures and cars. The pedestrians appear unaffected and uninterested in the slaughter before them.
Read more about this topic: Fragment Of A Crucifixion
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