As a passionate admirer of traditional art forms, I find myself contemplating digital revolution through the prism of my favourite artists. Francis Bacon and Pierre Soulages – masters, who transformed painting in the 20th century – serve as my touchstones for understanding new creative frontiers. This exploration isn’t mere speculation but a framework for evaluating the potential of NFTs through the artistic philosophies that have most profoundly shaped my own understanding of art.
Francis Bacon: Disturbing the Digital
Francis Bacon, known for his haunting, contorted figures that expose the vulnerability of the human condition, created works that physically disturb the viewer. His paintings captured psychological torment through distorted bodies contained within geometric structures – a contradiction between chaos and control that feels startlingly relevant to our digital age.
In today’s NFT landscape, Bacon might exploit the medium’s programmability to create experiences that evolve and distort over time. Imagine a Bacon digital triptych where the central figure gradually metamorphoses based on market volatility data or social media sentiment – the human form becoming more fractured and distorted as online discourse grows more chaotic.
Bacon once said, “I want to create images that are a shorthand of sensation.” In the NFT space, he might leverage generative algorithms to produce unique variations of his disturbing portraits, each one responding to different data inputs while maintaining his signature style of existential unease. The result would be art that not only represents but actively embodies the viewer’s digital anxiety.
Pierre Soulages: Beyond Black in the Blockchain
Where Bacon explored human anguish, Pierre Soulages – the “painter of black” – found infinite possibility in limitation. His “Outrenoir” (Beyond Black) works, with their textured surfaces that capture and reflect light rather than absorb it, demonstrate how restriction can paradoxically create boundless variation. In Soulages’ hands, black isn’t absence but presence—a dynamic field of perception.
In the NFT realm, Soulages’ obsession with light’s interaction with surface could translate into works that respond to the viewer’s environment in real-time. His digital counterparts might access the collector’s device camera to detect ambient lighting conditions, subtly shifting the artwork’s appearance throughout the day – creating a uniquely responsive experience that remains true to his investigation of perception.
The texture of Soulages’ work – those ridges, furrows, and striations that give his paintings their characteristic depth – might find digital expression through programmatic elements that simulate physical properties. NFTs that appear to have weight, resistance, and tactility would challenge the assumed flatness of digital experience, just as Soulages challenged the assumed flatness of painting.
Even more intriguing is how Soulages’ monochromatic philosophy might address the blockchain’s immateriality. Perhaps he would create NFTs that exist only in negative space -visible only through their impact on other digital elements, much as his black paintings are defined by how they capture and redirect light rather than by pigment alone.
Shared Approaches: Materiality in an Immaterial World
Both artists developed profound relationships with their materials – Bacon with his oils and canvas, Soulages with his tar-like blacks and custom tools. This material consciousness seems at odds with NFTs’ digital nature, yet both artists might find blockchain technology’s conceptual underpinnings fascinating.
For instance, both might appreciate the blockchain’s immutability as a new form of material permanence. Soulages once remarked, “What I do is part of being”, suggesting that art isn’t representation but presence itself. The blockchain’s ability to establish verifiable uniqueness might appeal to this philosophical stance, offering a new way to create works that don’t merely depict but actually exist as autonomous digital entities.
Bacon, who destroyed many of his works when dissatisfied, might be intrigued by smart contracts that could program an NFT to self-destruct under certain conditions – perhaps creating digital works,that exist only for predetermined durations before permanently vanishing, enhancing their emotional impact through enforced impermanence.
The Collector’s Role: From Passive Viewer to Active Participant
Perhaps most revolutionary would be how Bacon and Soulages might transform the relationship between art and audience. In the traditional art world, viewers remain separated from the creative process. In blockchain-based art, collectors become participants.
Bacon, with his interest in chance and accident, might create NFTs that respond to collector interaction, evolving through a collaborative process of digital distortion. Soulages, concerned with perception and presence, might develop projects where the collector’s viewing patterns influence the work’s evolution, making the art a direct reflection of its relationship with its owner.
Conclusion: Evaluating NFTs Through Traditional Masters
Examining NFTs through the lens of Bacon and Soulages offers more than nostalgic speculation – it provides criteria for evaluating digital art’s potential depth. The most significant NFT works won’t be those that merely exploit technological novelty, but those that, like my favourite artists, use their medium to explore fundamental questions about human experience, perception, and presence.
When I consider new NFT projects, I find myself asking: Does this work disturb and provoke like Bacon’s twisted figures? Does it transform limitation into possibility like Soulages’ blacks? Does it establish a material presence despite its digital nature? Does it evolve meaningfully with its environment and audience?
These questions, derived from traditional masters who never touched a computer, provide surprisingly relevant frameworks for navigating the digital frontier. The revolutionary aspect of NFTs may not be their technology but their potential to extend artistic inquiries that have captivated humans for centuries – inquiries that artists like Bacon and Soulages pursued with singular vision, and which continue to guide my own appreciation of art in all its forms.
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