Figure with Meat

A powerful, screaming figure dominates this unsettling painting, seated on a throne and flanked by two halves of a bisected cow carcass. The central figure is an appropriation of Diego Velázquez's 17th-century Portrait of Innocent X, but Francis Bacon transforms the pontiff into a gruesome spectacle. His hands, elegant in Velázquez's original, here grip the arms of the throne in apparent terror, while black striations drip from his nose. The raw meat, likely inspired by Rembrandt's Slaughtered Ox, frames the figure, creating a disturbing, crucifixion-like composition. This juxtaposition of sacred authority with visceral, animalistic imagery, alongside the lavish but decaying feel of the meat, evokes 17th-century vanitas paintings. Bacon uses these elements to explore themes of worldly decadence, power, and carnal sensuality, contrasting them with a palpable sense of existential damnation.