Rubies and Lemons

      I was reading in bed this summer evening and half-aware of the sound of the kids around the estate that drifted in through the open window on the gentle breeze. Gradually, the noise became louder and more urgent as a fight began to develop down below. I got up and leaned out of the window to see what was happening. Eleven boys in their mid-and-late teens were milling around down by the front steps of my block. Two more were rolling in the dirt beneath a tree, locked in a grapple and swinging punches at each other's heads. A bicycle lay on its side in the road surrounded by plastic shopping bags full of groceries. It was impossible to ascertain what the fight was about. Their shouting voices were more warnings than words. Occasionally, a phrase could be discerned: "My bruvver's bike"; "Leave him, Antony!"      The two grapplers got up and brushed off the dirt. Then the group split into various twos and threes and made a show of holding each othe...

On September 12, 1996, I interviewed the Melbourne-based consultant psychologist, Tim Watson-Munro, in his Melbourne office. Mr. Watson-Munro has been closely associated with many criminal cases in his professional capacity.   Consultant psychologist, Tim Waton-Munro S.C.: When we consider the history of Western Art, it is liberally sprinkled with artists who have concentrated on dark themes. Do you think there are certain individuals who are drawn to, and focus on, the darker elements of existence? T.W-M.: Yes, absolutely. There are some people who have a very maudlin view of life. In highly creative people – artists, for instance - there are what we may term hysterical personalities who are anxious, neurotic types. Well, actually, 'neurotic’ is a term I don't really like to use, but it certainly has an onomatopoeic feel to it, like ‘psychopath’, as a way of describing sorts of behaviour. It conjures a useful image. And there are also depressed personalities who can us...

Where there is no imagination, there is no horror. – Arthur Conan Doyle The real reason for my conviction is that there comes a time in the life of every criminal when he can go no further, and this spiritual collapse is what I experienced. – Peter K ü rten, the vampire of D ü sseldorf Francis Bacon’s prodigious drinking, gambling, and pursuit of extremes in his life have inevitably transmuted into his art. His straightforward avowal that we are merely part of the animal kingdom, seem to me to be a statement of plain fact. When interviewed by David Sylvester for Interviews with Francis Bacon , the artist said, ‘Well, of course, we are meat. We are potential carcasses. If I go into a butcher’s shop, I always think it’s surprising that I wasn’t there instead of the animal.’ He has sometimes been accused of glorifying the horror in his work for its own sake. This view is hard to comprehend because it makes little sense. Subject-wise, Bacon steered his work along a fairly narrow co...