The brooding beast

Deep inside the body of every supremely talented artist resides a brooding, malignant beast. It is mostly quiet and unobtrusive, but when the beast is aroused there is often no limit to its unpredictability. In many ways it is the existence of the beast that is the source of the artist’s talent; it takes hold of the artist and spurs him on to superhuman levels of achievement as well as extremes of behaviour.

Many painters have demonstrated this creative as well as destructive influence but perhaps none more so than the extremely camp 20th century English painter, Francis Bacon. Unpredictable, irascible and brilliant, Bacon relished the extremes of existence. His creative impulses were rooted in sexual pain and humiliation and his art dealt with the human condition as seen through suffering. Images he painted represented solitude, distress and tragedy. Violence, sex and death were common themes. But the paintings reflected people and events in his turbulent life. A sadomasochistic lover, Peter Lacy, once threw Bacon through a plate glass window which caused such severe injury to his face that he nearly lost his eye and had to have it sewn back on. Years later, Bacon goaded and abused another lover, George Dyer, into such a state of psychic meltdown that Dyer kept attempting suicide until he finally succeeded in taking his own life in a Paris hotel bathroom. This inspired one of Bacon’s greatest works Triptych May - June 1973.

The haunting series of three frames shows sequential views of a single figure, like stills from a film. There is no fixed viewpoint: we look through one doorway in the left panel, another in the centre and one in the right panel. Looked at from right to left, the images depict the events leading to the death of George Dyer. The nude figure vomits into the bathroom sink, crosses the room, and then dies on the toilet. Pretty bloody grim, and yet disquietingly arresting.

You may conclude, as have others (Margaret Thatcher described him as "that man who paints those dreadful pictures"), that Bacon was not all together in the head. I couldn’t possibly comment.

I have always maintained that the greatest Formula One drivers are gifted artists in their own right. Talented men like Jim Clark and Ayrton Senna possessed such car control that watching them fling a car round a racing circuit at speed in the wet was akin to being quietly present in Picasso’s studio as he expertly splashed paint onto a canvas. Skill like that comes from deep within and is seldom witnessed. We are fortunate in being able to see young Lewis Hamilton drive, as he is possessed of talent that is drawn out of the same well as these gentlemen’s.

We have not had much opportunity to observe Hamilton when in the grip of the beast - perhaps his PR people have been too efficient at presenting him as a clean-cut, well mannered lad - but anyone carefully observing his sometimes wild eyes would have seen that it was only a matter of time before the beast took over.

The weekend Hamilton spent at his home Grand Prix a fortnight ago was one of great frustration for him. A less than impressive qualifying performance on Saturday had been followed by a lacklustre drive in the race on Sunday. As he crossed the Start/Finish line at the end of the British Grand Prix, Hamilton’s mind was filled by an intense desire for self-gratification.

“Simon,” he said to a close friend in the McLaren team, “man, I am in sore need of a distraction; that was a pretty shitty race. Look, I am going down to my hotel suite at the Mayfair in London. Why don't you see if you can rustle up about ten or so birds, bring them round to the suite and let’s have a party.”

Meanwhile, across the great pond, Nicole Scherzinger, had spent the Saturday of the British Grand Prix in a pensive mood. Her decision to refuse to attend the race and stay in Los Angeles was preying on her mind. The seven year age gap between herself and her boyfriend intruded upon her thoughts with increasing regularity. Was he going to leave her and find someone younger? It is a well established fact that the height of a woman’s beauty is attained a little before her thirtieth birthday; Nicole was now 34. Although he was always reassuring, did Lewis in his heart of hearts see that her looks were fading and yearn for something brighter?

A piercing thought then struck Nicole and she felt her pulse quicken. Lewis was at his home Grand Prix. He was in familiar territory, with her absent. All the girls spoke colloquial English, which he understood well, and would love nothing better than a night with a glamorous Formula One World Champion. There was nothing else for it but to get on the earliest flight to London.

Any neutral observer with some experience of attending parties would agree incontrovertibly that the party in the penthouse suite of the Mayfair Hotel on the night of 8 July 2012 was a roaring success. Buckets of champagne on ice were to be found strategically positioned about the room. Canapés were in abundant supply on tables in the corners of the living room. A sound system was blaring out the latest hip hop sounds from LA and New York. Girls (none a day older than 23) in sheer mini skirts, eight inch heels, bum-length coiffured hair and layer upon layer of make-up, were dancing, champagne glasses in hand and cheering at the top of their voices.. Hamilton’s American rapper friend, J. Cole, was lyrically leading the cheers while gyrating his hips with a girl’s waist in each arm. Hamilton had his hands on the well-endowed buttocks of one girl while grinding his hips in rhythm with those of another.

It was while Hamilton was thus engaged that Ms Scherzinger walked into the penthouse suite at the Mayfair. Her visit was brief, for she took one look at the activities going on therein and, after informing Hamilton that he was “a fucking little piece of chicken-shit,” promptly extracted herself.

Hamilton was left in a quandary. Should he carry on with the party or end it and go after Nicole and try and placate her? The beast in its element, he chose the former. His thought process was admirable: "I'm in enough shit already, so I might as well enjoy myself now and deal with the shit later."

It is a curious fact that once the beast resident in a talented artist is becalmed, the artist is suffused with intense feelings of regret at his actions. He walks about wrapped in a pall of desolation so intense that his artistry is rendered impotent. Francis Bacon would drink himself silly after a humiliating escapade and only feel able to paint again when the abasement had lifted.

Hamilton spent the days after the party trying desperately to reach Nicole on the telephone, but she would not take his calls. His feelings of abasement were so bitter that he could not properly focus on his driving. At the German Grand Prix in Hockenheim last weekend, Hamilton’s mind was simply not on the job at hand; at the start of the race his concentration was elsewhere and he lost several places to other drivers. A puncture ten laps from the end of the race came almost as a relief to him as all he wanted to do was get away from the circuit and beg Nicole to forgive him.

Never one to spurn opportunities gifted to him, Fernando Alonso coasted to an easy victory in Germany which put him firmly at the top of the championship standings and made it look all the more likely that he will be crowned world champion for the third time at the end of the season. He, unsurprisingly, was thrilled.

As Hamilton stepped out of the McLaren motor home to leave the circuit, he observed a curious sight out of the corner of his eye: an enormous man in a broad brimmed hat was carrying Fernando Alonso in his arms as one would a young child.

Gitau

24 July 2012