Francis Bacon on Religion

     Francis Bacon, like many other artists, claimed to be atheist, but always painted religious symbols in his work.  The first painting that he was widely recognized for was the Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion in 1944.  A short number of years later he also produces a series of painting in which he took Portrait of Pope Innocent X by Diego Velázquez and distorted and painted him rather unpleasantly and screaming.*  Francis Bacon did not limit his use of religious symbols.  He used them all throughout his painting career, resurfacing in a wide number of his work.  It is rather unorthodox that a man that claimed disbelief in something to put so much dependency on the topic, Bacon felt the topic of religion needed to be addressed and this is what he sought to do, and achieved.** 

     "One possible psychoanalytical explanation is that Bacon conflated his own father with the symbolic Father, and so the Pope becomes a reminder of the rejection that he suffered in his family life."**  Bacon's goal in depicted the Pope in this way was to show his viewers how he sees the world, as if the world did not have a God.  However, once was not enough.  He had to resurface the topic multiple times in his work, and show the demise of the Pope.  Bacon painted more that twenty-five images of the Pope all inspired by the same painting by Velázquez.  The first two paintings he did as a study of Velázquez's painting he later destroyed before it was supposed to be shown in an exhibition at the Hanover Gallery.**

    The next papal series he did in 1951 were inspired by a photograph of Pope Pius XII.  These were monochromatic painting that resembled his later series entitled Man in Blue.  Bacon paints the Pope in a raised throne of sorts that extends him closer to the foreground and allows the Pope to be scrutinized to an even higher degree than if he were at a comfortable distance.

Three from Bacon's series "The Screaming Pope"

Bacon's "Study of three figures at the base of a Crucifixion"


*Encyclopedia Britannica. "Francis Bacon." Encyclopedia Britannica Online. http://www.britannica.com (accessed April 12, 2014).
**Arya, Rina. "Assaying the Pope: Francis Bacon's Interrogation of Religion. ." Implicit Religion 14, no. 3 (2011): 343-359. EBSCOhost (accessed Rebruary 13, 2014)