THREE STUDIES FOR FIGURES AT THE BASE OF A CRUCIFIXION, 1944

  • Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion, 1944, Francis Bacon

    Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion, 1944

    Oil and Pastel on fibreboard, each panel 94 x 74cm 

    ©The Estate of Francis Bacon, Image repoduced for educational purposes only

     

    Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion, 1944, marked the arrival of Francis Bacon’s singular voice in modern art. Painted in the closing years of World War II, the triptych depicts three distorted, partly human forms set against a burning orange background. These figures, derived from the Greek Furies and Christian imagery, appear trapped in a state of anguish and mutation, a reflection of both personal and collective trauma.
     
    Bacon avoided direct religious symbolism, instead shifting attention to the agony at the margins of the Crucifixion. His use of the triptych format allowed emotion to unfold across three panels, each one amplifying the next. The flat, acidic ground heightens the sense of confinement, while the figures twist and howl in a void stripped of comfort or redemption.

  • “I wanted to paint the scream more than the horror.”

     

    -Francis Bacon

    The central figure, with its gaping mouth and stretched neck, evokes both a scream and a silent lament. The creature on the left, hunched and eyeless, appears immobilised in its suffering, while the rightmost form, part beast and part bird, writhes in a pose of both defiance and defeat. Together, they form a chorus of anguish, stripped of narrative but charged with emotion.
     
    Bacon’s decision to paint them in isolation, against a single field of acid orange, intensifies their presence. There is nowhere for them, or for the viewer, to escape. In their distorted anatomy, Bacon captures something recognisably human, but pushed to the edge of recognition. These figures are not religious symbols but psychological ones, embodying pain, fear, and the primal forces that lie beneath the surface of civilisation.