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Literature and Theology Advance Access originally published online on September 10, 2008
Literature and Theology 2009 23(1):33-50; doi:10.1093/litthe/frn039
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© The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press 2008; all rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Painting the Pope: An Analysis of Francis Bacon's Study After Velázquez's Portrait of Innocent X

Rina Arya

University of Chester

rinaarya77{at}yahoo.co.uk


  Abstract

In many discussions of his work Bacon is disparaging about religion, and more specifically, Christianity. And yet, in spite of his unequivocal stance, throughout his oeuvre he was relentlessly drawn towards the symbols of the Christian tradition, especially the motif of the Crucifixion and the Pope. In this article I want to compare Velázquez's painting of Pope Innocent X (1650) and Bacon's Study after Velázquez's Portrait of Innocent X (1953) in order to assess the reasons that explain Bacon's obsession with the image of the Pope. His descriptor ‘study after’ in the title qualifies his aims, which entailed deconstructing the Velázquez painting and reappropriating it for his own ends. I think it fitting to describe Bacon's version as being a mirror-image or photographic negative of Velázquez's. And although Bacon virulently critiques the institutions of the Church, he is dependent upon the wealth of theological sources for his imagery as well as the position of theism, which alone gives credence to his practice.


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