Bacon The Artist Quotes & Sayings

The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery. — Francis Bacon

Through my friend Tony Shafrazi, who's an art dealer and an artist himself - he helped to show Basquiat and Keith Haring, and has worked with the Francis Bacon estate - it was really through my friendship with Tony that I developed even more of an interest in art. — Owen Wilson

Some people do need to be held to account because some of the conduct is so widely at odds with our values, but making an example out of a few people would be a disservice. — Thomas R. Pickering

All artists are vain, they long to be recognized and to leave something to posterity. They want to be loved, and at the same time they want to be free. But nobody is free. — Francis Bacon

I feel ever so strongly that an artist must be nourished by his passions and his despairs. These things alter an artist whether for the good or the better or the worse. It must alter him. The feelings of desperation and unhappiness are more useful to an artist than the feeling of contentment, because desperation and unhappiness stretch your whole sensibility. — Francis Bacon

Certain people in life are just going to take what's given to them, and certain people in life know they want better and they're going to go find better. I've always been that type of person. — Danny Brown

I want there to be another independence referendum at some stage. I want Scotland to be independent, but I wouldn't choose to have it happen because England votes to come out of the E.U. — Nicola Sturgeon

No artist knows in his own lifetime whether what he does will be the slightest good, because it takes at least seventy-five to a hundred years before the thing begins to sort itself out. — Francis Bacon

Look at Garry Kasparov. After he loses, invariably he wins the next game. He just kills the next guy. That's something that we have to learn to be able to do — Maurice Ashley

The Artist should not forget his mission, perhaps the most religious of all, of sustaining faith in the worthwhileness of art and thus of life. — Ernst Bacon

Aren't we all agreed about those things
in theory?'
In theory, yes,' said Bobby. 'But not in reality. If every one really wanted to abolish the difference of rich and poor it would be as easy as pie to find a way. There's always a way to everything if you want to do it enough. But nobody really wants to do these things. Not as we want meals. All sorts of other things people want, but wanting to have no rich and poor any more isn't real wanting; it is just a matter of pious sentiment. And so it is about war. We don't want to be poor and we don't want to be hurt or worried by war, but that's not wanting to end those things. — H.G.Wells

Gilbert and George said: "But don't you see? That's how Bacon is. He is absolutely right to behave as he wants." Not as he wants. As he has to behave. An artist must be open to the muse. The greater the artist, the more he is open to "cosmic currents." He has to behave as he does. If he has "the courage to be an artist," he is committed to behave as the mood possesses him. "That's the man who booed Princess Margaret!" - the peasantry shrink back from his sulfurous glow. — William S. Burroughs

Aren't you still worried Gran will cut me off, and you'll be saddled with a spoiled wife and not enough money to please her?"
"To hell with your grandmother, too. For that matter, to hell with the money." He tossed the chair aside as if it were so much kindling; it clattered across the floor. "It's you I want."
"Jackson!" she cried as he approached her. "Someone might hear you!"
"Good." Catching her about the waist, he backed her toward the bed. "Then you'll be well and truly compromised, and there will be no more question of our marrying."
While she was still thrilling to the masterful way he'd decided to take charge, he tumbled her onto the bed, following her down to cover her body with his.
As she gaped at him, shocked to see her cautious love behave so delightfully incautious, he murmured, "Or better yet, they can find us here together in the morning and march us right to the church."
Then he took her mouth with his. — Sabrina Jeffries

You see, painting has now become, or all art has now become completely a game, by which man distracts himself. What is fascinating actually is, that it's going to become much more difficult for the artist, because he must really deepen the game to become any good at all. — Francis Bacon

Very few people have a natural feeling for painting, and so, of course, they naturally think that painting is an expression of the artist's mood. But it rarely is. Very often he may be in greatest despair and be painting his happiest paintings. — Francis Bacon

As a ballplayer, (Dizzy) Dean was a natural phenomenon, like the Grand Canyon or the Great Barrier Reef. Nobody ever taught him baseball and he never had to learn. He was just doing what came naturally when a scout named Don Curtis discovered him on a Texas sandlot and gave him his first contract. — Red Smith

As the serpentine expanse of glass drew open, the city seemed to wrap around them: rooftop gardens with stunted trees in pots, water towers like chunky flying saucers, the spires of distant skyscrapers. — Scott Westerfeld

So long as road lies before us, and what care we if we must travel it alone! — Ayn Rand

I do struggle with how much and in which way, as an artist or celebrity, that you voice your political views. — Kevin Bacon

I don't think people are born artists; I think it comes from a mixture of your surroundings, the people you meet, and luck. — Francis Bacon

The THINGS that COUNT most IN LIFE ARE the THINGS that CAN'T BE COUNTED. — Zig Ziglar

No just man suffices unto himself for the winning of justification. The divine mercy must always hold out a hand to his footsteps as they falter and almost stumble, and this is so because the weakness of his free will may cause him to lose balance, and if he falls he may perish forever. — John Cassian

I could not stop talking because now I had started my story, it wanted to be finished. We cannot choose where to start and stop. Our stories are the tellers of us. — Chris Cleave

Some artists leave remarkable things which, a 100 years later, don't work at all. I have left my mark; my work is hung in museums, but maybe one day the Tate Gallery or the other museums will banish me to the cellar ... you never know. — Francis Bacon

I can't stand these damn shows on museum walls with neat little frames, where you look at the images as if they were pieces of art. I want them to be pieces of life! — W. Eugene Smith

An artist must learn to be nourished by his passions and by his despairs, — Francis Bacon