Francis Bacon > Quotes

“Existence is in a way so banal, you may as well try and make a kind of grandeur of it”
― Francis Bacon

“My painting is not violent, it’s life that is violent. Even within the most beautiful landscape, in the trees, under the leaves, the insects are eating each other; violence is a part of life. We are born with a scream; we come into life with a scream and maybe love is a mosquito net between the fear of living and the fear of death.”
― Francis Bacon

“You always have to go too far to get anywhere at all, in art or life.”
― Francis Bacon (painter)

“My painting is not violent; it’s life that is violent. I have endured physical violence, I have even had my teeth broken. Sexuality, human emotion, everyday life, personal humiliation (you only have to watch television)—violence is part of human nature. Even within the most beautiful landscape, in the trees, under the leaves the insects are eating each other; violence is a part of life.

You are born, you fuck, you die. What could be more violent than that?”
― Francis Bacon

“When talking about the violence of paint, it's nothing to do with the violence of war. It's to do with an attempt to remake the violence of reality itself.”
― Francis Bacon (artist)