Turbulent Modern

After John Flaxman: "Fury"

Megera, Tesifone, and Aletto
After John Flaxman
"The Furies"
from The Divine Poem of Dante Alighieri
1807
Etching, 13.3 x 19.1 cm
Tate Gallery, London

QUEST'É MEGERA DALL SINISTRO CANTO
QUELLA CHE PIANGE DAL DESTRO É ALETTO
TESIFONE É NELL MEZZO.

BEHOLD MEGARA'S THREAT'NING AIR.

Inferno, Canto 9

Complete etching No. 10: "The Furies"

T11084
Courtesy of The Tate Gallery, London

Impact: Bacon's Fundamental Twist to Tradition

Francis Bacon
Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion
c. 1944
Oil on board, each panel 95 x 73.5 cm
Tate Gallery, London
N06171

Tate display caption, May 2007: "When this triptych was first exhibited at the end of the war in 1945, it secured Bacon’s reputation. The title relates these horrific beasts to the saints traditionally portrayed at the foot of the cross in religious painting. Bacon even suggested he had intended to paint a larger crucifixion beneath which these would appear. He later related these figures to the Eumenides – the vengeful furies of Greek myth, associating them within a broader mythological tradition. Typically, Bacon drew on a range of sources for these figures, including a photograph purporting to show the materialisation of ectoplasm and the work of Pablo Picasso."