An image is defined as a visual representation, concept or impression of a message that is made up from form, shape, lines and colour. An artist has the ability to manipulate how an audience will react to or understand their work through signifying images or shapes that are visually decoded through it’s colour-composition, symbolic value, connotations or denotations. These elements are understood through psychology and context, whether it comes from culture, iconography, social construction, or history. They are almost always culturally or socially dependant and the interpretation may constantly shift over time or across different societies that hold differing beliefs or values, which determines the relationship between the spectator and the artwork. The artist sets up the image in a way that persuades the audience to read into an idea or a theme that he or she may feel is important to them, yet the interpretation will always be a subjective one, depending on the individual’s circumstances and sense of reasoning. Therefore an image is an ambiguous visual form of communication.
Artists Francisco De Goya, and Francis Bacon have managed to persuade their audience’s reaction to their works by using visual tools to express their struggles and beliefs about war, oppression, fear and the violence that they experienced in their lives.
Goya’s The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters was an etching from his series titled Los Caprichos developed in 1799. The work was a comment on the darkness of humanity and the unknown monsters that usually can only be dreamed of, that may have been created as a result of the war over the “enlightenment movement” that was tearing his civilisation apart.
Bacon’s Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion painted in 1944 was a series of representations of savage and animalistic men, with bestial and slightly ironic religious connotations. The work came out during the time the rumours about Nazi death camps were active and it is mentioned by French philosopher Georges Bataille that the style and nature of Bacon’s artwork is an attack on the ideal way a man should be seen or acts.
Goya’s The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters depicts a man sleeping peacefully on a table with writing that is translated as the title’s namesake to guide the audience into understanding the meaning that Goya was attempting to depict. The ‘monsters’ are the animals in the background which are composed in such a way that make it seem as though they are leering over the sleeping man, almost as if they are expecting him to wake up at any moment. The placement of the animals and the degrading lighting scheme from the foreground into the darker background visually manipulates the audience’s gaze further towards the animals, which becomes the signifier for the ominous and sinister feeling that erupts into the minds of the audience members. This gives the viewers the ability to decode and develop an understanding of what the artist is trying to say through his work.
The animals are also a culturally significant symbol as well as a social and ironic one. According to Robert Hughes’s book titled “Goya”, the animals are culturally significant as they hold connotations of evil or relations to the devil in Spanish folklore. The bats that fly above the sleeping man’s head are a symbol of ignorance, as bats are blind, and evil, as they are creatures of the night and believed to be a counterpart to the devil. The owl is ironically not a symbol of wisdom in Goya’s etching, but of stupidity, which is how they are seen in Spain. The lynx on the other-hand sits quietly behind the sleeping figure and away from the rest of the animals who are assaulting him, instead piercing its gaze towards the man. It is mentioned in Hughes’s “Goya” that in Spanish folklore it was believed that lynx’s had the ability to see through darkness and be able to tell truth from false, and fact from fiction.
Aside from the elements that make up an image, context provides the audience with deeper understanding of that image. Goya had captioned his artwork: “Imagination abandoned by reason produces impossible monsters; united with her, she is the mother of the arts and source of their wonders.” which means to say that reason compromised by imagination will produce ‘monsters’, but reason and imagination together creates the curiosity towards an unimaginable result. The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters is described as a comment of derision about the social and moral injustices of war and the impact it had on society, because at the time the work was created, Spain was in turmoil over the new progression dubbed as the “Enlightenment Period”, which was another way to say that Spain was under-ways of re-forming and modernising its society by moving away from religious control and only allowing reasoning and rational thinking as an authority to solving public issues.
Goya’s artwork is essentially an argument of change in his known society, as well as about the newfound forward thinking for the future, despite of fear of the unknown. Goya depicted this idea by targeting common superstitions that weren’t guided by truth. This is shown through the use of signage and cultural symbolism of the animals, the composition of the sleeping figure compared to the animals, as well as the lighting scheme. The artist has created the desired response upon his audience through these methods, but the message is understood and received by the audience through knowledge as well as social and cultural construction, traditions, values, and psychological associations of symbolism.
Francis Bacon’s Three Studies for Figures at base of Crucifixion is a disturbing look at minds being controlled by a human’s most base instincts. The artist used semiotic theory through the contrast of the bleak greys compared to the bright orange background and the deformed shapes of the figures that are bent and twisted into unnatural and seemingly animalistic shapes, which are designed to make the audience immediately uncomfortable. The faces of the anthropomorphic figures are virtually non-existent apart from the large, open and anguished mouths painted in the images. The human mouth usually expresses intensity and emotion, and in this case Bacon has depicted the mouth as a sort of wound that gapes open to unleash emotional and physical pain. Bacon believed the mouth was the gateway that linked humanity to our most primal selves. (Hubbard.S 2007)
This triptych has religious connotations through the title but the painting itself shows no evidence of religion or a crucifixion, yet it was painted during the second world war when the Nazi’s dictatorship was prevalent, and the common Jewish or minority man or woman lived in fear due to their religion, race, sexual preference, socio-economic status, or appearance.
The artist has created these creatures that are more than human as a visceral confrontation with death. The twisted and gnarled bodies of the series are the catalyst that projects this idea to the audience when put up against the stark and deserted orange background, with radiated lines that come centrally from the figures that vaguely suggest a room or location. The men shaped into animals are created through violence and force which is shown through it’s unnatural and disturbing composition. This gives the audience the idea of pain which is cast through an uncomfortable and sickening feeling that is developed from the signage of the paintings.
According to art critic and philosopher Georges Bataille, “The painter had been accustomed to living through forms of violence his whole life”. Bacon was known to see and fear the immediate and current threat on human life as he grew up in war-torn Ireland and later in Berlin. He experienced first-hand the violence and despair that came from war, and the pessimism developed from it. Despite this, Bacon has stated that “the violence of the paintings are not necessarily about the violence of war, but an attempt to reach the violence of reality itself.” Bacon’s paintings were bringing hell to earth – it was something incomprehensible and unrealistic, but it was happening in his contemporary society and that is what drove him into painting these images.
The work is a visual comment on violence, anguish and pain and it is shown in the triptych that violence brings out our most primal behaviours. It is through signage, colour-theory, as well as the symbolism of the mouth and the shape of the men that gives it this meaning. Context plays a large role to as well to help give this series the meaning of violence and confrontation towards it that is understood from the artworks towards the audience.
Without the background knowledge of the artist and the time the work was developed, it is hard to find a deeper understanding of the series without changing the meaning as a whole.
Both artists Francisco De Goya and Francis Bacon have persuaded their audiences’ understanding of their artworks through a controlled manipulation of their reactions. Goya used the culturally significant symbols of the woodland animals in his artwork as well as the composition over the sleeping man to give the message about the fear of the unknown and the blindness to rational insight and reason, which is shown with the symbolism of bats, owls as well as the lynx, whereas Bacon immediately disarmed his audience by the harsh colour contrast of the bright oranges and dull greys of his series as well as the obvious and disturbing animalistic figures, to spread a message of violence and anguish in reality. It is through placement, connotations, denotations and human psychology towards symbolism and signage as well as socially and culturally dependant elements that a meaning or message can be interpreted. This is shown through Goya’s and Bacon’s work through their use of colour-theory and the symbolic use of the animals and animal shaped men. Using signage and symbolism such as these creates a spectatorship into the lives and ideas of the artists in question and shares an opinion or feeling through the artwork.
An image can be defined as a visual message that delivers its meaning or impression through those tools and its meaning can be a subjective one, depending on how those tools or visual cues are interpreted, whether it be socially, culturally or psychologically.