Francis Bacon's Studio

The parallels between museums and places of worship have often been drawn and the deference with which art is treated can be remarkable (of course, this goes some way to explain its tumultuous history).

In any case, the clear resonance of such comparatives cut through the hushed silence of the ritual-makers when I visited the exhibition of Francis Bacon’s studio at Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin recently.

In 1998 the entirety of Francis Bacon’s chaotic studio was immaculately relocated from London to Dublin. So if you potter past the pastelled, sea-whisked impressionist studies and side rooms of Constable ‘sketches’, into the last rooms of the Hugh Lange gallery, this is what awaits you:

A real mess.

Archaeologists, conservators and curators noted down the location of dust particles, paintbrushes, photos and well-leaved books in the studio – some 7,000 items – and tagged and labelled away in order to re-create the exact clutter around which the artist breathed, moved and painted.

In the first room of the exhibition there is an amusing video interview of Bacon from a South Bank show in 1985 playing on a huge screen which you can see from t.13.50 here: http://www.ubu.com/film/bacon.html.  

In the video, Bacon implies that his mess was fundamental to his creative process. Primed with this insight, the suggestion that the configuration for inspiration lies ahead, the visitor makes the full circuit around the walls that encase the room, we peer through the selective glass panels, intrigued. And the thought cannot escape you: his studio is being visited like a religious shrine and its contents have been preserved and are now treated like religious relics.