Figurative Actions and Reactions
Francis Bacon’s oil and pastel painting, “Three Figures and Portrait” (1975), utilizes a circular composition with a gold line leading around the work’s four focal points: the birdlike creature in the foreground, the figure in the right middle ground, the portrait in the background, and the body in the left middle ground (see right). Annular compositions suggest unity and stability through the circle's spacial connectedness and equidistance from its common center. However, Bacon’s composition achieves a moment of spontaneity in which the two primary figures— the two bodies, both identified as George Dyer, Bacon’s lover, occupying the middle ground— disrupt an otherwise balanced frame by weighing the work rightward (McKay). Without balance, the composition lacks unification as a whole and identifies as a collection of scattered independent parts. Only by analyzing the parts' contribution to the whole— rather than recognizing the whole as a compilation of its parts— can the work reveal its intense internalized suffering. Similarly, Ali Smith’s novel Autumn is a nonlinear braid of past and present delivered by a third-person, omniscient narrator. In one instance of the past, Elisabeth gestures the romantic interest she developed toward Daniel in adulthood. As a visual metaphor, the Bacon's unstable composition reveals that Smith’s protagonist was inevitably prone to suffering when she accepted her love for Daniel.
To begin, in the scene where Elisabeth gestures her love for Daniel, the figure in the foreground is Pauline Boty. The birdlike creature sits carefully, supported by a crib-like structure (Bacon). It occupies the closest portion of center in the frame, just below the portrait and between the two bodies (Bacon). When Elisabeth was a child, Pauline Boty— although not by name— was a common subject between Elisabeth and Daniel. The artist establishes the foundation of Elisabeth’s relationship with Daniel. The crib in which the creature sits is high of the ground, the creature’s legs hanging below it (Bacon). The creature is helpless and stationary, unable to loosen itself from the arrangement. Boty is a “1960’s Pop Art painter,” an icon which holds prominence in several other earlier memories in Elisabeth’s childhood. Elisabeth, finding a collection of Boty’s works in a catalog, recognizes the images although having never seen them before, knowing them only through Daniel’s described memory. Buying it, she brings the catalog to Daniel, introducing the catalog with a tone of uncertainty. Elisabeth says to Daniel, “I don’t know if you remember, but when we went on walks you sometimes described paintings to me” (Smith 157). Elisabeth’s uncertainty is not a matter of Daniel remembering the images, but remember describing the images to her. Although the catalog, bought and brought for Daniel, is a symbol of Elisabeth’s adoration, she cannot be certain how he will react or if he will recognize her gesture. She “put [the catalog] on the table” (Smith 157). Boty’s work, a memory of the two character’s shared past and a gesture of Elisabeth’s developed romantic interest physically sit between the two characters and metaphorically sits between past and future of their relationship with one another. The creature, however, is hungry and demands attention as its lips reveal two lines of festering pointed teeth. Like the creature, this catalog is unavoidable and demanding of the occupants sharing the room.
The figure in the leftmost middle ground is Elisabeth’s past, her adulthood prior to her offering Daniel this catalog. The figure is naked and unprotected as he leans toward the center of the scene. Elisabeth’s gesture of offering the found catalog attempts to lean toward intimacy with Daniel. The body contorts outward, leaving its core exposed and unprotected as it moves (Bacon). Elisabeth has, throughout her past relationships, sacrificed intimacy with her partners because of Daniel. When her other lovers ask her why she does not love them, she tells them that “it isn’t possible to be in love with more than one person” (Smith 146). However, she has no romantic relationships outside of the ones she ends, other than her hope of romance with Daniel. Elisabeth is unwilling to imagine loving anyone other than Daniel, a feat which prevents her from approaching intimacy with others. Even in her relationship of six years, in which her and Tom “were thinking of making their relationship permanent” (Smith 147). The non-committal approach of “thinking” as a collective unit whether the couple should commit long-term suggests hesitation on the part of one or both partners. The pattern of Elisabeth’s ex-lovers suggests however that she alone denies her relationship with Tom to evolve further. The figure’s spine and leg twist in unnatural contortions (Bacon). Its face reflects the figure’s current suffering as its eyes shut while its mouth puckers. Bacon depicts the leftmost figure hovering at the moment between falling and crashing; the figure itself in too much pain to recognize its state of reality. Elisabeth ends her adult relationships for Daniel, despite a relationship with Daniel not being offered. She recognizes and admits within these failures that her relationship with Daniel is “not that kind of relationship,” that it “never has been,” and that it might never be (Smith 146). By “that kind of relationship,” Elisabeth explicitly refers to a physical relationship but simultaneously implies a romantically intimate relationship. Regardless of recognizing that Daniel has previously shown little, if not no, interest in “this kind of relationship” with Elisabeth, she denies herself romantic intimacy with others in order to pine after Daniel. By bringing the Boty catalog to Daniel, Elisabeth forces herself into a position in which her current pain, the unnatural contortions of her failing intimacies, will end, but is left with the uncertainty of whether she will be hurt when she hits the concrete below when Daniel reacts to her gesture.
The portrait is Daniel’s reaction. The picture of the unknown man hangs from a removed perspective on the wall, within but not part of the action Bacon depicts (Bacon). The man wears a suit and a tie that juxtaposes the vulnerability he witnesses below (Bacon). The portrait is inanimate and incapable of interacting with the scene. Regardless, the subject contributes a presence which fills the room. Despite the sacrifices which Elisabeth offers to Daniel— whether he recognizes them or not remains ambivalent— Daniel fails to reward or discourage Elisabeth’s romantic interest. Instead, only through by presenting the collection of Boty's art, does Elisabeth force Daniel to react. By reacting to the catalog Elisabeth brings, he consequently responds to Elisabeth’s interest. Elisabeth’s anticipation assigns power to Daniel through her anticipation for his response, even before Daniel finds an opportunity to react. When he does react, Daniel raises “one hand up to tell her to stop” (Smith 159). His reaction manifests not as a warm physical embrace or open words of affirmation, but a distant wave allowing him more time and space to react. The portrait is smudged across the eyes and down the right side of the man's face, concealing his identity and blinding him from the action below (Bacon). Daniel flips through the catalog, confessing to Elisabeth that he has only ever been in love once. He does not say with whom. However, he tells her “it wasn’t a person [he] fell in love with,” implying that his love, therefore, can not be Elisabeth (Smith 159). His attention remains on the pages, on Boty, even as he reacts to Elisabeth. His regard to Boty’s work suggests that it is the catalyst for his comment, that what he examines is the recipient of his love or a reminder of that love. The portrait’s ears perk out from the edge of the smudge, and he listens to the action below (Bacon). His mouth is flat in a stoic judgment. However, the lack of expression could also be the man’s reaction to the limited sensory input, such that he is simply unaware that there is a scene below and that is why he does not react. It is ambivalent if Daniel is unaware or simply tactful in his reaction and the collateral consequences his comment has on Elisabeth.
The body in the rightmost middle ground is Elisabeth’s present once she becomes aware that her romantic interest is one-sided. Bacon only depicts the figure’s body (Bacon). Unlike the nude counterpart to the left, the rightmost subject denies its vulnerability. It turns in a cowering motion to protect itself (Bacon). The figure is incapable of actively protecting itself in this position. It must stir into a new position to defend itself. When Elisabeth registers Daniel’s reaction, she senses “a coldness shifting all through her body” (Smith 160). Her emotional disappointment manifests into physical manifestations. She nods, putting on a front “as if she understood,” but she does not understand (Smith 160). Her response to Daniel is disjointed and compartmentalized. She does not feel cold while nodding but does so in a manner which demands two separate parataxis, one for each response. However, even as she fails to comprehend what Daniel tells her, she understands what causes his reaction: Daniel has not, does not and likely will not return her romantic interest. However, that is not to say that Daniel never loved her in a familial or platonic way. The figure leans back, out of the frame, creating a merger with the right border (Bacon). The figure, however, remains stationary with its knees on the floor (Bacon). Despite the backward shift in weight, the figure refuses or is incapable of leaving the scene. When Elisabeth excuses herself, “she left the book on the table” (Smith 161). The action is a deliberate display of the pain his truth causes her, rather than an act of forgetful overwhelm. She does not need, nor does she want, a reminder which symbolizes her shared past with Daniel, if he does not love her equally in the present. However, she instead tells Daniel when he hobbles after that “[she] won’t need it” (Smith 161). Her certainty suggests an abrupt dismissal, and unwillingness to pine any longer after Daniel, especially after releasing herself of all other ties to romantic intimacy for him.
Although this interaction occupies one of the more prominent memories regarding the development between Daniel and Elisabeth, it occurs in the past. Set in the spring of 2003, the memory occurs thirteen years before the novel’s present (Smith 149). However, this memory is a turning point, a moment which determines the future of the Elisabeth and Daniel's relationship. For both characters-- but especially for Elisabeth who had sacrificed other romantic relationships for Daniel-- this memory remains prevalent in all of their interactions which follow. Any progression within their relationship stems from Elisabeth's gained knowledge that Daniel never loved Elisabeth, but she loves Daniel. Regardless of this pain, Elisabeth continues to visit Daniel in his care home, even though he is often asleep and non-responsive when throughout her entire visit (Smith 29). Her dedication to Daniel suggests her love for Daniel persists, and therefore so does the pain of knowing it has never been reciprocated. Like Elisabeth protected herself by leaving Daniel’s house after learning he never loved her “in that way,” the omniscient third narrator conceals the knowledge of this incident for the novel's first half (Smith 159). However, when something is concealed, it endures to some extent in secretion, manifesting without detection. The pain Elisabeth experiences because of her love for Daniel exhibits itself throughout the entire novel, well before the narrator explicitly addresses the pain. Pain and love exist within Elisabeth and Daniel's entire relationship. However, after Elisabeth explicitly gestures her love, forcing a reaction from Daniel, this pain and love boil at the surface of their ongoing relationship, even if it is not repeatedly made explicit by the narrator.
Works Cited
Bacon, Francis. Three Figures and Portrait. London, 1975.
MacKay, Andrew Stewart. “A Five-Point Guide to the Work of Francis Bacon.” AnOther,
AnOther Magazine, 4 May 2016, www.anothermag.com/art-photography/8644/a-five-point-guide-to-the-work-of-francis-bacon.
Smith, Ali. Autumn. Anchor Books, 2016.
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