Alternative Overcoming of Representation: F. Bacon, G. Deleuze

Abstract

This article analyses the logic of sensation, discussed by Deleuze in his earlier books Kant’s Critical Philosophy and Difference and Repetition. In this case the logic of sensation is analyzed by invoking the plane of art as experimentation, showing that art, and especially the modern art, being conditioned by certain principles of the logic of sensation at the same time becomes one of the best ways to reveal these conditions. Deleuze determines the art as creation of sensations, making the invisible force visible. The plane of becoming or genesis is inaccessible for everyday experience, impossible to represent, but actually through the way of sensations the artists create, they are capable to render it. Deleuze treats Francis Bacon’s painting as one of the best ways of overcoming representation – that actually was the main problem in classical art – and discusses his painting by invoking analyses of other contemporary art trends, such as abstract painting and abstract expressionism. The way of using the diagram that introduces chaos and disrupts cliches and, thus, frees the sensation, outlines the specifics of every art trend and the success of creation of the sensation. Such aspects of painting inherent to Bacon’s case as haptic space, analogical language and modulation of color are treated as best conditions for creating the sensation. Bacon’s Figures that are not tied to recognizable objects any more sustain the sensation best as the force must be exerted on a body in order to reveal the change of the virtual plane to the actual one. Keywords: Bacon, Deleuze, figure, sensation, abstract painting, abstract expressionism. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15823/zz.2014.029