When I look at you across the table I don't only see you, I see a whole emanation which has to do with personality and everything else ... the living quality ... all the pulsations of a person ... the energy within the appearance ... And to put that over in a painting mans that would appear violent in paint. We nearly always live through screens - a screened existence. And I sometimes think when people say my work is violent that from time to time I have been able to clear away one or two of the screens.
- Francis Bacon, Painter, as quoted in Float by Anne Carson