Having the chance to see his style progress from raw and unformed in the collection is something one won’t get to see outside of a museum-hopping tour of Europe.

Tapping into the human spirit. What does that phrase mean?

Often it is described as showing the triumphs that we humans can achieve. It’s a phrase about how great we are. How we are masters of destiny. We know but love and kindness.

But I disagree, we are so much more. We are pain and anguish. We are frail and sometimes broken. We are imperfect.

This is what I am reminded of when I study the works of Francis Bacon. I am reminded that as godlike as we think ourselves to be, we are not so godlike in our reflections.

The Milwaukee Art Museum is currently displaying Bacon’s work from 1945-1962, his formative years, so all can see what I mean when I describe how his paintings have tapped into the human spirit.

The years of the collection are when Bacon truly became one of the great artists of the 20th century. He took a firm grasp of his subject matter.

The exhibit is something one rarely gets a chance to see in their lifetime. Francis Bacon’s paintings alone stand out as awe-inspiring, but having the chance to see his style progress from raw and unformed in the collection is something one won’t get to see outside of a museum-hopping tour of Europe.

Bacon painted the human form. He painted it as perhaps how he felt inside, tormented by the events in his life. During these years he was at his lowest emotionally, he lived as a vagabond around southern Europe and northern Africa. He painted to support his drinking and gambling.

But through this torment Bacon’s work thrived. His art grew and progressed into his own signature style, while many other artists at the time headed down a different path.

Bacon became obsessed with the idea of caging the human form. Figures in his work are often separated from its environment by a black box Bacon has painted around the person. They have become alien in their own domain, a most unwanted creature.

The first work in which this box appears is his “Portrait of Lucian Freud,” which is actually touring with the exhibit currently at the MAM.

In another painting at the MAM, “Figure with Meat,” Bacon reflects on the Valisquetz’s “Portrait of Pope Innocent X,” showing the twisted figure of the pope screaming out from his confining and suffocating destiny. The way Bacon expressed man’s struggle with life and anguish influenced much of modern horror culture.

Watch movies such as “The Ring” or play the video game “Silent Hill” and you will see almost direct representations from Bacon’s work. His influence seems to be everywhere after one sees the exhibit. Some of Hollywood’s most terrifying images from the past 10 years seem to derive from Bacon’s works.

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