Citation

Baranova J. Cogent Arts Humanit. 2018; 5(1).

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/23311983.2018.1560615

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This article deals with the surrealist paintings of Šarūnas Sauka (b.1958), an artist totally unknown in the West and not even broadly investigated in Lithuania. Following Deleuze, the argument for this paper concentrates on the question: can Deleuzian concepts engaged for the experimental reading of Francis Bacon's paintings also apply to the works of other artists? The author of the article proposes reading visual stories created by Sauka using the strategies Gilles Deleuze employed when reflecting on Francis Bacon's paintings. Some similarities between "dark" topics (e.g. suicide, inferno) and particularly the theme of the body and the dismantling of the organism are possible points of meeting between the two painters. "Life is frightening" is the starting point for both painters. Bacon paints the sharpness of a real scream, whereas Sauka escapes the dreadfulness of life by choosing a strategy of indirect communication and abstract humour. © 2019, © 2019 The Author(s). This open access article is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 license.

Language: en

Keywords

body; life; Bacon; Deleuze; Sauka