subject: people
descrizione: Painting, 1946, that excellent resolution of the permanent opposition in Bacon's work between formality and chance, has one thing wrong with it. Manipulation of paint became an inexhaustible gamble for Bacon, involving all sorts of exploration of accident and chance, and often this included the use of addiditives such as dust, sand, cotton wool, candle wax, sprayed auto-mobile paint, Letraset, and, above all, the pastel used freely in this piece and many others. Unfortunately, in 1946 Bacon did not yet know what he later learned by chance, that when pastel is used along with oil paint it adheres better to the surface if the artist works on the reverse side of a primed canvas. Because he didn't know this when he executed Painting, 1946, it is now too fragiled to be moved.