Francis Bacon

The Logic of Sensation

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by Gilles Deleuze,

Translated by Daniel W. Smith, Tom Conley, Afterword By

University of Minnesota Press

Due/Published May 2005, 264 pages, paper

ISBN 0816643423

New in paper (S05)

Deleuze had several paintings by Francis Bacon hanging in his Paris apartment, and the painter's method and style as well as his motifs of seriality, difference, and repetition influenced Deleuze's work. This first English translation of this text shows us Deleuze in intimate confrontation with one of that century's most original and important painters. In considering Bacon, Deleuze offers insights into the origins and development of his own philosophical and aesthetic ideas, ideas that represent a turning point in his intellectual trajectory.

First published in French in 1981, Francis Bacon has come to be recognized as one of Deleuze's most significant texts in aesthetics. Anticipating his work on cinema, the baroque, and literary criticism, the book can be read not only as a study of Bacon's paintings but also as a crucial text within Deleuze's broader philosophy of art. In it, Deleuze creates a series of philosophical concepts, each of which relates to a particular aspect of Bacon's paintings but at the same time finds a place in the "general logic of sensation." 

Illuminating Bacon's paintings, the nonrational logic of sensation, and the act of painting itself, this work also points beyond painting toward connections with other arts such as music, cinema, and literature. Francis Bacon provides an entry point into the conceptual proliferation of Deleuze's philosophy as a whole.