STUDY AFTER VELAZQUEZ, 1953

  • STUDY AFTER VELÁZQUEZ'S PORTRAIT OF POPE INNOCENT X, 1953, Francis Bacon

    STUDY AFTER VELÁZQUEZ'S PORTRAIT OF POPE INNOCENT X, 1953

    Oil on canvas, 153 x 118 cm

    ©The Estate of Francis Bacon, image reproduced for educational purposes. 

    Bacon’s Study after Velázquez’s Portrait of Pope Innocent X (1953) is one of the most iconic images of twentieth-century art. Inspired by Diego Velázquez’s 1650 portrait, Bacon strips the grandeur of papal authority to reveal a figure caged in his own terror. The Pope sits enthroned, but his mouth opens in a silent scream, his form dissolving within vertical veils of paint that resemble both prison bars and curtains. The deep purple tones and streaks of white light heighten the sense of confinement, turning the most powerful man in Christendom into a trapped, haunted apparition.
     
    This work marked a pivotal moment in Bacon’s career, cementing his fascination with the human condition and the collapse of dignity under psychological strain. It was never a critique of religion so much as an exploration of fear, guilt, and isolation, universal states of being. Through his distortion of Velázquez’s masterpiece, Bacon transformed reverence into raw emotion, reimagining the Pope not as a symbol of sanctity but as a man consumed by his own humanity.
  • I loathe my own face, and I’ve done self-portraits because I’ve had nobody else to do.

    - Francis Bacon
    Francis Bacon’s works on paper offer a rare glimpse into his process, though he famously denied using preparatory sketches. The surviving drawings, collages, and studies reveal a restless experimentation, figures emerging from smudges, lines circling heads and limbs like containment marks. Many were made in secret, often given to friends or destroyed before exhibitions. Unlike his monumental canvases, these paper works feel intimate and immediate, tracing the movement of thought before it hardened into paint. They expose Bacon’s fascination with distortion and flesh at its most fragile, proving that even his smallest gestures carried the same tension between control and chaos that defined his art.