Whether it's Hillary Clinton or Mike Huckabee, Barack Obama or Mitt Romney, or John Edwards or John McCain, you can be certain of one thing: Steve Rogers, depicted above in his Captain America garb, and Lex Luthor, depicted below, will not prevail in today's Iowa caucuses. Both of these fictive figures, from Marvel and DC Comics, respectively, ran for president. Cap lost in 1980 and Luthor won in 2000 (if you can believe that). How they fared in the Iowa caucuses, however, was not explored in significant detail, if at all.
Marvel Comics did pause once in 1981, in its alternate history book What If?, to reflect upon the world that would have been had Captain American been elected to the presidency:
"I kinda like this one, Bob. Leave it," The Joker (Jack Nicholson), to Bob the Goon (Tracey Walter), choosing to spare one particularly gruesome painting after a mad spree of defacing works of art at the Gotham City museum, as Prince's "Partyman" plays on a thug's boombox, during a famous sequence in Batman, the 1989 film directed by Tim Burton.
That painting was by Francis Bacon and titled Figure with Meat, which is owned by the Art Institute of Chicago. On this work, the website of the Institute notes:
Permeated by tormented visions of humanity, Francis Bacon’s paintings embody the ethos of the postwar era. Beginning in the late 1940s, Bacon created a series of works modeled on Diego Velázquez’s Portrait of Pope Innocent X (1649/50), in which he transformed the celebrated masterpiece into grotesque, almost nightmarish compositions. In this version, he replaced the noble drapery framing the central figure with two sides of beef, directly quoting Rembrandt van Rijn and Chaim Soutine’s haunting images of raw meat. By linking the pope with these carcasses, Bacon allowed the viewer to interpret the pope alternately as a depraved butcher, or as a victim like the slaughtered animal hanging behind him.
(Internal links added). No wonder the Joker saved the painting from destruction.
Inspired to paint by Picasso, Bacon was a painter of grisly images. How to describe his ouevre? Writes Steven Litt of the Cleveland Plain Dealer: "His paintings of screaming popes and caged businessmen - icons of the modern age - seem to flay the skin off their subjects and mold flesh like raw clay. His portraits lacerate foreheads, crush cheekbones, warp eyes and lips out of alignment and transform torsos and limbs into pretzels of twisted meat."
Figure with Meat, painted in 1954, has been called a "notorious riff" on Velazquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X.1 Mary Louise Schumacher of the Milwaukee Journal Sentineloffers a bit more detailed analysis of the work, its homage to Velasquez, and its depiction of the pope:
Bacon appropriated the famous portrait, with its subject, enthroned and draped in satins and lace, his stare stern and full of authority.
In Bacon's version, animal carcasses hang at the pope's back, creating a raw and disturbing Crucifixion-like composition.
The pope's hands, elegant and poised in Velázquez's version, are rough hewn and gripping the church's seat of authority in apparent terror.
His mouth is held in a scream and black striations drip down from the pope's nose to his neck. It's as if Bacon picked up a wide house painting brush and brutishly dragged it over the face.
The fresh meat recalls the lavish arrangements of fruits, meats and confections in 17th-century vanitas paintings, which usually carried subtle moralizing messages about the impermanence of life and the spiritual dangers of sensual pleasures. Sometimes, the food itself showed signs of being overripe or spoiled, to make the point.
Bacon weds the imagery of salvation, worldly decadence, power and carnal sensuality, and he contrasts those things with his own far more palpable and existential view of damnation.2
In sum, the painting "exhibit[s] Bacon's fascination with the screaming mouth set against a gray face that seems to be in the later stages of necrosis, with wrinkly eyes peering out helplessly from behind a mask of decaying, translucent flesh."3 Litt, in the piece linked above, observes that Figure with Meat is "less an assault on Catholicism per se than an image of an authority figure reduced to utter anguish and helplessness."4
See for yourself (and click upon the image to enlarge it):
The painting with which Bacon became so enthralled, Velasquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X, is below (and can be clicked upon for a larger image):
Figure with Meat recently toured a number of museums as a part of the "Francis Bacon: Paintings from the 1950s" exhibit (more about which can be found here and here). In fact, a television advertisement for the exhibit survives on the YouTubes and can be seen here:
The Joker defaced a number of paintings in that sequence (though I've been unable to locate an online listing thereof), but he did append his signature to one work for good measure:
Figure with Meat has drawn a number of blog and Usenet comments over the years (mostly prompted by its appearance in Batman, including some such posts here, here, here, here, and here. It seems that Tim Burton can be thanked for generating some level of interest in Bacon among those previously unaware of his work or existence. So, last but not least, behold the sequence from Batman featuring Nicholson, Kim Basinger, and various members of the supporting cast that inspired all of those inquiries about the Bacon painting:
1. Dorothy Shinn, "85 Drawings at Oberlin Mark Ohio Son's Return; Jim Dine's Portraits, Figure Studies and Pastels in 40 year span on Display," Akron Beacon Journal, June 26, 2005. 2. Mary Louise Schumacher, "Screaming in Paint," Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, January 27, 2007. 3. Colin Dabkowski, "The dark side: An Albright-Knox exhibit of Francis Bacon's paintings provide a chilling study of the violence that seemed unending in the 20th century," Buffalo News, May 8, 2007.
"Stolen moments. An hour here. Ten minutes there. I know it's not enough for a woman like her. But it's all I have to spare. The perfect woman at the worst possible time. I sometimes wish I had not met her until later. Already there have been so many broken moments. So I . . . overcompensate. But I know it's not enough . . . for a woman like her." - Superman, on his relationship with Lois Lane during the infancy of their courtship, in Superman Confidential #1 (DC Comics, Issue Date: January 2007, Released November 2006).
Written by Darwyn Cooke with art by Tim Sale, this story takes place during the first few months of Superman's career in Metropolis (and, accordingly, the first few months of Clark Kent's time at the Daily Planet). Spread out over three full pages (each divided into three equal-sized horizontal panels), this monologue sequence begins with an extreme close-up of ice cubes floating in liquid. With each successive panel, the view zooms back a bit, revealing more of the scene than was apparent in the previous panel. Whereas first we see ice, we then see a champagne bottle rising from an ice bucket, then champagne being pored into what appears to be a crystal champagne flute against a backdrop of stars. We then see Lois Lane and Superman sitting together and sharing glasses of champagne near some type of window, through which we see the starry night. Finally, we see that they sit on some type of high balcony, not near a window. As Superman remarks about the need to overcompensate, we finally realize that the two of them sit atop the Eiffel Tower.
A very nice moment it is, certainly not stereotypical of the medium. It is often written that Superman intrigues us not because of his many powers but because of his loneliness - he is the last of his kind, the last of his race, the last survivor of a dead world. Revealing, through an inner monologue, the hidden romantic insecurities of the world's most invulnerable man is, well, much more interesting than his battling some generic foe, is it not? In attempting to escape from that loneliness, even he is not immune to the self doubt and critical introspection that dooms us all in such endeavors. Superman indeed.
Reaction is varied elsewhere in our blogosphere. Chad Nevett, writing here, fails to mention this particular scene and concludes the issue "was either boring as hell or somehow very subtle and brilliant." Nor does The Continuity Blog specifically mention the sequence in its review of the issue. A bit of poking around reveals, however, that I am not the only one who fancied it. Says Bully of Bully Says:
This [new series] looks like it's shapin' up to be another [favorite], not merely for good solid superhero action but for its portrayal of one of my very favorite elements of the Superman mythos: the Clark/Lois/Superman love triangle. There's a gorgeously-written and illustrated three-page romantic sequence where Superman and Lois share a champagne toast on top of the Eiffel Tower that is the sort of scene I'd love to see in a Superman movie.
More succinct is New York's Michael Hartney: "The three-page Eiffel Tower sequence is worth the $2.99 alone." Agreed. Mostly echoing these sentiments is the author of The Nerdly Arts, who summarizes: "Straight from the fight Superman takes Lois Lane on a date at the top of Eiffel Tower, lamenting that with all of his other responsibilities he cannot give Lois the attention she really deserves." He concludes: "A tremendous character piece that unfortunately doesn't have a story to match." Perhaps there is some truth in that criticism, but I prefer character to plot.
Multiple issues of this series have been published, but I have yet to read them. Usually, when I pick up periodicals or comic books, they languish unread for several weeks or months before I finally read them. Such was the case with this issue, but I'm glad I finally got around to it. Of course, I'm still waiting to find the time to sit down and read, in its entirety, John Byrne's six issue mini-series, The Man of Steel, from 1986. We'll see how I fare with that task.
Thirty-something suffering from nostalgia but, thankfully, not from bouts of irony. Here, I will revisit artifacts of popular culture not sufficiently explored elsewhere, though I may perhaps stray from that mission at times.
