Fearful symmetry.

Henri Rousseau, 1844-1910

Antonio Ligabue, 1899-1965
I just came across that first Rousseau painting last week, and suddenly remembered being shown it as a five or six year old in an art lesson, we had to draw our own versions. Bless you, forgotten primary school teacher! The sensations all flooded back as strong on seeing it again. The lithe, calligraphic rhythm of a beast's body. And Ligabue, too, what hypnotising paintings, unbearably intense in person. Found the last drawing floating around on my hard drive, did it a few years back.

The aguey tendon, the sin, the sin.

Rembrandt, 1606-1669Chardin 1699-1779

Soutine, 1893-1943

Francis Bacon, 1909-1992

Jenny Saville, born 1970.

It's strange to me that for all his consummate language of the grotesque, Bacon was the most lighthanded and insubstantial painters of his own namesake. He seems only able to really invest in human flesh, I think the overt carcass in his work is a weaker symbol, almost too easy. Of all of them, Saville strikes me as cold, but Bacon as the least visceral. In fact, Chardin, for all his delicate 18th century domesticity, is appealingly, repugnantly meaty in comparison. Though I'm not sure anyone could ever outdo Soutine.

Oh man in need of sleep lately. Brain going -

You're about as femme fatale as an after dinner mint!

Otto Dix, 1891-1969

Max Beckmann, 1884-1950

George Grosz, 1893-1959