FRANCIS BACON- THE SCREAMING POPE
The Screaming Pope by Francis Bacon is considered to be one of Bacon’s masterpieces. The painting which was done in 1953 is a hauntingly dark work which shows what appears to be a screaming Pope on a golden throne with vertical lines that blur the image as if covered by a curtain.
I first came across Bacons work in the Imperial War museum, when I was about 10. I found his work very strange and found myself wanting to know why his images are painted the way they are.
The image can bring up a number of questions as to the subject matter and ultimate goals of the work. Did Bacon mean for this work to be disrespectful? What was he expressing? I want to explore these questions further and analyse the painting.
This painting is commonly referred to as the Screaming Pope and was based on Velazquez’s ‘Portrait of Pope Innocent X’ of 1650. By taking this extremely formal and refined portrait and turning it into something which is almost alarmingly controversial is something which could raise questions about this being a blasphemous painting. Bacon was obsessed by the original ‘Portrait of Pope Innocent X’ by Diego Velazquez and said:
‘I’ve always thought that this was one of the greatest paintings in the world and I’ve had a crush on it’.
Bacon never saw the original painting but merely saw reproductions and photographs of it which he hung on his wall. Between 1950 and 1965 Bacon had painted around 45 variations of the subject. .. each different in style and colour.
Bacon painted his Study after Velazquez at a time when abstraction was a popular method of painting. Painted directly onto unprimed canvas, Bacon employed a variety of techniques that included using large paintbrushes, his hands, rags and any available material on hand to spread the paint on the canvas, he used dragged brushwork and blurring. The artist used broad strokes of paint over the image of the pope that run vertically and then fan out. These could be interpreted as desperate clawings and certainly gives the image movement. The vertical lines and downward brushstrokes suggest he may be descending quickly: Francis Bacon (although from an Irish catholic family) became an atheist, so a controversial view could be that the pope is descending into hell. Francis Bacons pope seems to be in a living hell from which there is no escape. He is paralyzed with pain and fear, and jolted with shocks from his golden throne which has been transformed from a symbol of authority into an instrument of torture or a prison. His body language is alarming as a reflection of humanity, corruption and vulnerability.
The pope is painted with an almost transparent quality, making him more of a ghostly than a religious figure. This transparency could be referring to the idea of the church disintegrating or falling apart.
As I was studying paintings of Popes I came across Titian’s ‘Portrait of Cardinal Filippo Archinto’ Which I found very intriguing. The hazy appearance of the painting can be compared to Titians Cardinal
who is sitting behind a semi transparent curtain. Both figures we can see are shown cut off at the knees and have these vertical lines creating a veil and sense of mystery.
Bacons Pope is surrounded by what appear to be golden ropes or a cage like structure trapping him in his own personal hell. This shows a big contrast to the original by Velazquez whose depiction of the Pope is serene yet aloof. It is the scream in Bacon’s which hold our eye now, it is part of a feral shriek and a cry of the animal inside. It is also may be a breaking out or a denial of his role as a leader of the church, we immediately feel pain, anguish, anger, transformation and death, we see a screaming animalistic figure. The most obvious influence on this work is the portrait of Pope Innocent X itself, however there are many other influences to explore. Velazquez uses soft muted tones to convey the brilliancy of the clothing and the status it represents, the power and the influence of the Pope, with the use of royal colours such as gold and red. He is sitting comfortably on a throne, again as a sign of power and greatness. However, the colours in Bacon’s pope are remarkably start and lack warmth. The red cape from Velaszquez’s portrait is transformed into a garish bluish purple cape here. This transformation can be viewed as an attempt to mock the papal reglia through the use of colour and through the ghost-like treatment of the brushwork. The starkness of the complementary colours, with the purple against the yellow throne, adds to the sense of discomfort which the Pope experiences. The white cassock is endowed with luminosity, which makes it seem almost ghost-like. It also appears to be blood-spattered, which adds to the drama of the scene, suggesting maybe he has blood on his hands, as if his past is catching up with him. In addition, the traditional gilded and stately throne is transformed into a translucent bright yellow chair, which is cold, clinical and acts as a frame around the pope.
The sense of authority is lost in Bacon’s portrait and the idea of the pope being in control has vanished. His mouth is gaping wide open, implying screaming or shouting. Is this in pain or in anger and command? He is gripping the arms of the chair tightly, possibly for stability, as if clinging to the power that he is losing control of. It is also know that after Bacon’s death photographs of Hitler, and shouting Goering and Goebbels were found in his studio. This feral scream from the pope could have been influenced by these haunting pictures. Is
the pope shouting for help or is he shouting orders, misusing his authority? Bacon is looking at psychological collapse. The cry of the agressor or the victim yet still creating destruction and despair. Here the idea of the mouth is emphasised screaming or biting and this could be interpreted by Freud and related to dreams and the unconcious and impotence.
When Head VI, one of the studies for the painting was exhibited in London it was met with outrage as well as recognition and the image was seen by some as blasphemous against the Catholic Church. Andrew Sinclair wrote ‘captive and monster, the sixth head protests and devours, his holy office is snare and threat. He is held in a skeletal cube that is a dead loss, a boxed hell without escape. The picture assaults the power of the church, it is blasphemous. It represents Bacon’s heresy and protests against the rule of the organized religion which he had known in Ireland. He told a chocked remporter that his ‘Head’s were an attempt to make a certain type of feeling visual. The feeling of his own fear of morality and rage against authority. He said ‘Painting is the pattern of one’s own nervous system being projected on the canvas’. Sergei Eisenstein’s film image from the Battle Ship Potemkin is also known to have influenced the Screaming Pope. As we can see in these images, the Pope is shown wearing glasses with the right lens broken and blood streaming down his cheek, the mouth clearly echoes the nanny’s harrowing cry of pain. When asked of the meaning of the mouth, Bacon revealed to Sylvester : ‘ you could say that a scream is a horrific image, in fact, I wanted to paint the scream more than the horror. I think if I had really thought about what causes somebody to scream it would have made the scream that I had tried to paint more successful. In fact they were too abstract. I’ve always been very moved by the movements of the mouth and the shape of the mouth and teeth. People say that these have all sort of sexual implications. I like, you may say, the flitter and colours that comes from the mouth, and I’ve always hoped in a sense to be able to paint the mouth like Monet painted a sunset’.
