Francis Bacon: 1909-1992, Deep Beneath the Surfaces of Things

I started my collection of the Taschen 'Basic Art' series a while back with the original series in its hardback format, which were fairly large coffee-table style books. This is from the new Basic Art 2.0 series which was introduced for the series' 30th anniversary last year (2015). This is again the hardback version of the book but these books are approximately half the size now, but still a reasonable size measuring 26.4 x 21.6 x 1.3 cm and this is reflected with these hardback versions being considerably cheaper that the larger books released in the first series. Just be aware that any books in this newer series (with a release date of 2015 or later) will be one of the smaller books and not the larger ones from the original series unless specifically stated.The quality is still the same as with the original series - the production is slick with very good illustrations/reproductions which reproduce the colours well and dedicate a good portion of the book to the paintings. This book, on the often dark and disturbing works of Bacon, contains 35 beautiful full page sized images and 86 images which vary between half-page sizes, quarter page sizes and some smaller images which are often grouped into sets of 3 per page. The works are organised nicely and are of course broken up with text from the author.As always, the accompanying text can be a bit hit and miss with this series. In this instance I was surprised by how much text is included and the author does his best to write a narrative that takes us through Bacon's life and the changes in his output, but often over-fills this by pouring forth endless, gushing compliments and seems intent on creatively coming up with different flourished ways of saying the same thing and does this more than is necessary - it is still worth a read, but I feel the text could have been better edited or reigned in to allow for clearer and more detailed analysis on individual works which are being shown. There are still some good insights and observations but if you're looking for more of a biopic then look elsewhere. This doesn't detract from the overall quality of the book in my opinion and the text is easy to ignore if that's not what you're looking for as the images are so captivating and command your attention nicely as you turn each page.This is a review of the book rather than a review of the artist as chances are you already know who Bacon is and what type of works he created and this is a really nice collection of those images which are grouped well and easy to flick through - the dark, mysterious and unusual subjects are framed nicely on each page and it's a very nice book to have out where people can flick through at will. Bacon's work is rich enough to keep coming back to this book again and again so it has a good shelf life too.95 pages in total with the final five pages dedicated to a brief history of Bacon's life and works, including a handful of photos of the artist. I think at it's current price this is a very nice well-priced book and these make a really nice set if you're collecting them.

Disturbing, Astonishing. Vivid right and vivid wrong

interesting book

Ho comprato di proposito il libro in inglese. Facile nella lettura e di grande ispirazione. Una perfetta introduzione alla pittura di quest'artista complesso.

Great introduction to Bacon.